The Clock
by Nerdfighter1309
Summary: Set in the world of Harry Potter. Alexander Worth was a normal magiscientist until he came to the aid of a woman in need and sees Jack and meets Nyctalope, which dragged him to a secret world within the secret wizarding world.
1. Chapter 1

Alexander Worth sighed as he set the small gyroscope down on his desk, twelve years of his life he had spent on these device, after hundreds of attempts he was close. He had been working on it ever since he left university, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. " _God I'm tired,_ " he thought before proceeding to mentally chastised himself for using the Lord's name in vain. Alexander Worth was a quiet man, he worked long hours at the London Institute for Magiscience and they were not bearing fruit quickly enough for him as after all these years his project was still not complete, hundreds of attempts, all failed. He was probably the only person left in the building, it was probably nearer dawn than dusk and he should probably get some rest. But, he was so near a breakthrough, he could hear it calling to him, or it was Michael, the illusion that sometimes appeared to him when he got tired. Michael was the name he gave the shadowy figure that he was too afraid to acknowledge, because he knew if he did he would fall into madness. With a sigh, Alexander started tidying his workspace, each tiny chisel, each small screwdriver, each little mallet was put into its own little clip on the wall. His notes were filed carefully into the overflowing filing cabinet, along with the note on all his other failed experiments. He jotted down some notes to himself for the next time he was in. He grabbed his long coat off the back of the door and removed his hat and cane from the hat rack behind said door. He did his final checks before he left, bolting all the windows, locking all the doors, making sure that the lamps were extinguished and that no experiments had been left running by mistake. Satisfied, he left.

Alexander walked down the streets, coat buttoned tight against the chilling autumnal air, hands thrust in pocket to prevent them from freezing. While he had been at work the first autumn fog had rolled up the Thames and was smothering everything in the city.

Suddenly, a shrill scream rent the air, followed closely by a bubbling, then harsh, low laughter. Alexander froze, he was not a fighter, but that scream came from a woman, or a child, he was honour bound to help. He readied his pistol, hoping he would not have to fire it, as he did not know how to use a gun.

The sight that greeted Alexander was a macabre one that made him freeze, on the ground lying in a pool of her own blood was a woman, a maid by looks of her black and white garments. Standing over her corpse was a man dressed in clothes that would have once been considered smart, he was in a top hat, long black coat, shirt, collar, black tie and black trousers, but the clothing was filthy and torn, like an aristocrat fallen on hard time. He was gaunt, with strangely iridescent eyes that looked like they had a light behind them, his filthy, straggly, jet black hair was longer than fashion dictated (as far as Alexander interpreted fashion) and his nails were long, yellowed and talon like, now covered in blood, the blood was slowly dripping onto the floor. The figure grinned at Alexander, showing blood stained teeth, "lovely night for a bite to eat," he said in a low, croaky voice before jumping over the ten foot wall behind him.

Alexander knelt next to the young maid, she was dead, her throat slit by some sharp blade, or the figure's nails. Alexander was hesitant to think of it as a he, as no man would attack a defenceless woman, even at this ungodly hour and no man would ever eat another human, it was a monster of some kind, but Alexander could not remember any such creature from his studies at school, fifteen years ago now. The maid's chest appeared to have been pulled apart by some strength that the creature did not appear to have, but must have to cause the injuries. Horrified by the sight, Alexander ran and ran and ran, ran as fast as he could, ran until he was lost, ran until his breath burnt his throat.

When Alexander was unable to run any further, he sank to the ground and lost his last meal into the gutter, he was now in an area of London he had never visited, but he could see landmarks through the hazy, smog filled skies, the Bell Tower of the Palace of Westminster, backlit by thousands upon thousands of street lamps reared like a finger thrust through the mist, the location of the horizon told Alexander he was somewhere in the East End. He looked around himself at the gridiron streets, rows upon rows of neat little houses, labourers houses, the workers, who make Britain's capital the wonder it was, all blissfully unaware of the monster that roamed their streets, for if they did they would surely tear the city apart to insure the safety of their children and womenfolk.

"What a predicament," Michael commented, his suddenly presence startling Alexander, there was none of usual playfulness, he appeared to be standing next to Alexander, "you should do something." Alexander ignored his sleep deprived mind trick, "but what can you do? Will the Aurors take you seriously if you go to them talking about a torn up maid and that thing," he spoke with contempt in his voice, "of course," he said suddenly changing his tone, a mocking smile dancing on his lips. "You could hunt it yourself, find it, track it, all you need is to find a way to track it and you are no tracker and that thing can really jump. He's like one of those creature in the southern lands what were they called? Oh, it doesn't matter, just tell the Aurors, they can deal with it, it's their job. Now, which way to the Aurors? Why did I ask you, we both know you're lost."

And he was, he knew which side of the Thames he was on, but not where in London and he had lost sight of the Clock Tower as the mist thickened around him, twisting like fingers as it reached for him. He wandered the roads, up alleys, through gaps between buildings barely wide enough for a man and down through avenues, Michael appearing ahead of him and goading him on, or insulting him, or just laughing. Eventually, Alexander burst out of the workers' quarters and onto Oxford Street, normally busy with rich shoppers buying fine clothing, now empty except for homeless people, who wandered studying the street, hoping for a shiny penny or two to pay for their breakfasts. "What a sad waste," Michael said, nothing but a voice in the wind, or in Alexander's head, "humans do such dreadful things to each other, they fight, steal and kill. Then they realise they have no rules, so they make rules to justify their fighting, killing and stealing, sometimes they do it for something as trivial as their uncaring imaginary friend." Alexander spun, finally having enough of his imaginary stalker, but Michael was nowhere to be seen.

Alexander walked down Oxford Street, through the higher end of central London until he finally reached his family home, 12 Heinlein Place, of course, 12 Heinlein place is on no maps and the houses stop after the eleventh townhouse. But, that did not worry Alexander, he walked up to the eleventh townhouse and then up to the wall next to it which segregated the artisans and business folk that lived in Heinlein from the riffraff, that wall just happened to be a clockmaker's workshop. Alexander drew his key and held it out in front of himself and inserted it into a hole in the brickwork, he turned the key and a door appeared marked with a brass twelve, he opened the door and stepped inside.

After hanging his coat and hat, changing his shoes for carpet slippers and putting his cane in the umbrella stand, before breaking from his usual pattern, something that would usually horrify him. He passed straight by the kitchen and the pantry and instead, he walked instead straight for his bookshelf lined study. Once inside he opened the drinks cabinet and took out the decanter of strong sherry that was usually reserved for special occasions, he then took out a tumbler, poured a glass and downed it in one shot, the alcohol burning his throat. He was about to pour another when a voice stopped him, "tsk tsk, if you drink away your horror what's to say you won't forget and then you won't be able to talk to the Aurors and that young lady will never find justice."

Alexander put the decanter back in the cupboard and picked up the tumbler, he turned and walked past Michael, he left the tumbler in the kitchen for the maid to clean. He then took extra care as he did his usual checks before bed, all the windows were locked, all the doors were sealed up tight and all the lamps were extinguished. His checks complete Alexander prepared himself for bed.


	2. Chapter 2

That night, as one could expect, Alexander had a nightmare, he was back in that alley, but this time he was the monster, he was the one to grab the poor girl and drag her into the alleyway where he was the one to slit her throat with his nails, he was the one to tear open her body, he was the one to start eating her. He was the one standing over the body and it was Michael who stumbled upon him, gun drawn he looked down at the dead maid and felt an unquenched hunger for her, but fearing the gun, he was the one to jump away like a demon.

Alexander shot bolt upright in bed, his body covered in cold sweats, he blinked once and breathed a sigh of relief, he had not murdered someone, he was not an unknown monster, he was not hungry for flesh, just his breakfast. He tried to remember what day it was, it must have been Saturday, or the maid would have woken him, Saturday was one of his two days off. Alexander swung himself out of bed and changed from his nightshirt into his usual suit, reminding himself as he did that he needed to see the Aurors. He was carefully shaving in his bathroom, his razor scraping across his skin with precision, careful not to cut himself, he wipe down his face a washcloth, when something in the mirror caught his eye, it was just a blur of movement, when he turned, there was nothing there.

"Curious," he muttered to himself, he reached for his gun, but remembered that it was in his great coat down on the coat-rack, "curses," he carefully snuck out the bathroom. " _Who was that figure I saw in the bathroom?_ " He thought to himself as he searched his house, "t _he maid does not work weekends, was it a trick of my mind? Was it merely Michael, oh wait, those two are the same._ " Now worried that he could not find the figure and that he was considering Michael as more than a mental image brought up by tiredness, Alexander left the house without finding the source of the movement.

* * *

The Aurors' offices in London were inside of a warehouse owned by an Aurora Shipping Company, it was like every other warehouse. A large sprawling building evidently built not for its looks, as the brick and steel building was an eyesore to look at, it was built simply to be big. Alexander nervously walked up to the building, his cane clicking on the cobbles as he strode, Alexander checked the roof and the crowd as he walked, scared that the monster might be watching him, he was so busy looking elsewhere, that he walked straight into a man, causing them both to stumble. "Oi, watch where you're going," the man said, he had an American accent, he was dressed in a scruffy lounge suit, with an oilcloth duster thrown over the top, he was also wearing a wide brimmed hat.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," Alexander said embarrassed at his lack of attention.

"Yeah, ya should be," the American said as he stormed off into the early morning haze of London.

Alexander continued his journey into the warehouse, he passed the busy workers in their cubicles, where they shuffled papers about, barely giving him a second glance. Instead he headed straight for the back of the building, where he found his destination, a trap door, he opened the door and lowered himself down into the room below.

The Aurors offices were rather quiet compared to the bustling warehouse above, there were a couple dozen Aurors in their dark blue uniforms bustling about. There was a man being lead away in chains and another in cuffs behind him, there were people being given warm drinks whilst they talked to the Aurors, probably witnesses, or victims. "Can I help you?" A cheerful young fellow asked as Alexander got off the ladder, he looked like a new Auror, probably just left the academy, he was clean shaven and dressed in the Aurors' blue robes, he had the fine boned aristocratic features, intelligent blue eyes and short brown hair.

"Yes," Alexander said nervously swallowing, "I would like to report a murder."

The Auror stiffened, "go ahead, wait, actually we should go somewhere more private, this way please," he turned and walked down a corridor and ushered him into an office.

The office was really just a glorified cupboard, barely able to hold the table and two chairs, one on either side of the table. The table was stacked high with papers, pencils, writing implements, a lamp and several paperweights fashioned from the horns of various animals that did not officially exist. Without saying a word, the Auror sat down on the chair facing the door, meaning Alexander had to sit at the other. The Auror removed one of the sheets of paper from a stack and picked up the stub of pencil and looked Alexander in the eye, "we have a procedure to follow, so first, name?"

"Alexander Charles Worth," Alexander said as he rubbed at the corner of his eye, there was something it, probably. He kept seeing something out at the edge of his vision, but whenever he looked at it, there was nothing to see, no matter how subtle or sudden he tried to be, so the only logical explanation was that there was something caught in the lashes, or some such.

"Occupation?" The Auror asked without enthusiasm, it was the kind of voice that did not want to be saying what it was saying, but had to anyway.

"Magiscientist at the London Institute, specialising in Horology and Chronological studies," the thing at the edge of his vision was growing, but it was still just a black spot on the edge of his vision, Alexander reasoned it must have been exhaustion, either physical or mental from the prior night.

"Permanent place of residence?"

"12 Heinlein Place, London," the black formless shape was now moving, it was an oval shape, taking up just the corner of his peripheral vision, the shape was spinning slowly, neither shrinking or growing, it was just spinning.

"Age?"

"32," Alexander said distractedly as he tried to focus on the disk.

"Criminal record?"

"None," Alexander bit the inside of his cheek nervously as he watched the spinning disk.

"Blood state?"

"Pure blood, some Veela from my many greats grandmother," the disk was lightening, very slowly turning a greyish colour.

"Medical conditions, mental states, or mental condition that may affect your witness testimony?"

"I was tired, but I'm sure it was not an illusion of tiredness."

"Tell him about me," Michael's voice said, the oval was changing shape, it was growing what appeared to be hair at one end and ears on the sides and the grey was turning a sort of pinkish colour, it was becoming a face as it span.

"I will write that on the form none the less, right, finally, nature of crime, murder," he looked Alexander in the eye again, he did not looked convinced by Alexander's description of his own mental health and as such he believed Alexander was not telling the full truth, "now then, describe what happened."

"Well, as usual, I was the last to leave the Institute last night, I did my usual checks, door, windows, experiments and lamps, just in case. Then I was walking along Horoler's Walk, on my way home and I heard a scream, now, I'm not a brave man, but it sounded like a woman's scream. I did my duty as a gentleman, I drew my pistol and I rushed to her aid." Alexander started tearing up, but wiped away the tears quickly to try to hide them. "I failed. She was already dead, there was this man standing over her, thin fellow, tall, gaunt, with unfashionably long, filthy, scraggly, black hair, very long fingernails, they were sharp and yellow, like talons and he was wearing a lounging suit and top hat, but it was all worn and falling apart. I assumed him an aristocrat fallen on hard times, his teeth and fingers were red with her blood, I confronted him, he simply said, lovely night for a bite to eat," Alexander said attempting to imitate the low, croaky voice of the mystery man. "Oh, he had an East End accent I think, maybe Cockney, but not an aristocratic accent, then he jumped a ten foot wall like it was nothing." The Auror raised an eyebrow, but continued to scribble notes, "anyway, I went to see the woman, I could see she was dead, I had to check, she was obviously dead, her throat slit and her chest torn open and there were teeth marks on her body, I think the man had indeed been eating her." Alexander gulped as he noticed the oval again, now a face, it was not any face, it was Michael.

The Auror put down his pencil, "do you have any proof?"

"I will swear under veritaserum, or under whatever oath you want me to that is what I saw, I would reckon her body has either been taken to the morgue, or is still in Barber's Street, unless he dragged her away after that I fled."

"Like a little girl, why, I'm surprised he was not wetting himself and wearing a little dress," Michael said, he had grown his face fully now, all the features were defined perfectly and now a body was forming for him out the shadows in the corner of the room as they slowly blended together, knitting themselves into skin and clothing.

"Why did you not come straight here?" The Auror asked, he sounded sceptical.

"I was too scared, I ran from the scene, ran all around London, I was lost for hours, when I found my way, I went straight home and locked the doors and windows, can you blame me? It was horrifying to see."

"You chicken, you could have shot him you know, you had the time to do it, but you hesitated, you let him get away."

The Auror hummed to himself, balancing the pencil between his fingertips, "whilst I am sceptical about this, I will send someone to Barber's Street to look for the body, failing that we will call around the morgues. However, if we don't find a body, then, without any evidence there will be nothing to go on and we cannot go out arresting people based on a single testimonial, then the case will be cold and we will not take it further until more evidence comes to light."

"I understand, also, you may wish to ask the stately homes if their missing a maid, I just remembered she was dressed as a maid of some kind."

The Auror's eyes narrowed, but he wrote more notes, "that will be all Mr Worth, we will send someone round if we need you."

"Thank you Mister?" Alexander said reaching out his hand to shake the Auror's but falters upon realising he did not know the man's name.

"Renfield, Vlad Renfield," the two shook hands and Alexander left the office.

Arthur watched Alexander leaved, he frowned at the report on his desk, he was debating whether to file it or not, on the one hand, Mr Worth was clearly a little crazy, he kept jumping at something to his right. But if it came up that he had reported it to the Aurors he would be in big trouble, but if the report went through he would be in more trouble, he had to decide he was more scared of, the Lord Commissioner, or Saxton, " _dammit, I'll have to talk to Jack about this._ "


	3. Chapter 3

Alexander walked nervously back to his house, his cane clicking on the cobbles being the only sound to be heard as he walked down the side street, the fog had thickened, rolling like wave as it crashed down in the city, muffling sound and making travellers lose their way. Alexander had taken a wrong turn in the fog and was now in a seedy part of London, where drunks lay in a stupor in the gutter and people recently evicted from the nearest den sat in the centre of the road gibbering to themselves or in a wide eyed, smiling fairyland as they lived in the little fantasy world the substances had brought to them. A few had grabbed at Alexander, trying to pull him down but he warded them off with a swift whack with the cane, "poor devils, if it were not for the fact they brought it upon themselves I would feel sorry for them."

"They get what's coming to them," Michael said, he had hitherto been silent since the arrival of the fog, he was still looking about with eyes that could not see, as if he expected something to jump from the fog. "If they wish to waste their mortal lives on something as menial as the pursuit of imaginary sheep, then let them, but they deserve everything that comes at them because of it, the madness, the sadness and the badness."

"No, that is not right, we should not let them end up like this, otherwise they are just wasting their existence."

Michael smiled broadly, "oh Alex, you can hear me," he shouted grabbing for Alexander, but his hands passed straight through him, Michael looked at his hands and tried to grabbed Alexander again, he frowned, "still can't touch ya though." Alexander cursed himself for acknowledging the apparition.

There was the sound of footsteps on cobbles heading towards Alexander from the direction he just came, he turned to see who it was, it was a man, a man in a suit and a top hat, but he could not see the face, it was hidden by the brim of the hat and the turned up collar of the scruffy coat, but that coat was familiar, that coat was splattered with blood, that coat belonged to a murderer. Faster than he could process what was going on, Alexander had gun in hand and cane at the ready, no-one would hear him from this narrow little road and if they did, they would assume him to be one of the bemused.

"Good morning," the voice that had haunted his nightmare the night before said, "I hear you've been telling tales on me,that's not very nice, you don't want to get involved in my affairs boy, this is more than you could imagine."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Alexander said, cringing at his wavering voice and his wavering pistol, "but you're a murderer and I'm going to take you to the Aurors."

The figure smiled, revealing sharp teeth, teeth for a carnivore, teeth that looked like they would soon be going for his neck, "that's a shame Alexander," Alexander started at the use of his name.

"How... how do you know my name?" Alexander fumbled.

The smile got larger, reminding Alexander of a shark that he once saw at Robert Gordon's museum, "I have my friends young man, it's a shame you are so stubborn, you have so much potential," he did not sound sad, in fact he sounded giddy with excitement. "You're going to die unnamed in this cobbled nowhere, then I will get that meal I wanted when you interrupted me," he lunged at Alexander, his nails outstretched, Alexander yelped and slipped on a cobble as he tried to dodge the maniac, Michael had vanished entirely. Alexander landed heavily on the cobblestones, his cane knocked from his wrist, he yelled in pain as his tailbone hit a cobble. From his seated position, Alexander pointed his gun at the cannibal and fired, but the man saw it coming and jumped high into the air, giving Alexander enough time to painfully get to his feet. Alexander took stock of his situation, he had five bullets left in his gun, his cane was in the fog, his wrist not holding the gun had hit something and was now in pain and he could not run away as his injured posterior did not allow for fast movement. He heard something land to his left, he whirled to face the sound, but could see nothing through the hated fog. Something hit him in the back of his left knee, forcing it to give way, Alexander collapsed to one knee, something hit him in the side of the head, sending him skidding across the slick cobbles.

Alexander was barely registering what happened as his his senses stopped, except for vision, which dulled, it looked like a misty twilight, which clouded both sight and mind. He watched as a shape he vaguely recognised walked towards him, he was a man in a suit, Alexander got the feeling he should be running, but could not remember why, so he ignored it as the usual stranger danger, he watched as the figure stopped in front of him so that his boots were by his nose.

Suddenly the boots turned and were knocked over, the figure fell and rolled into a crouching position, he growled at the new arrival, he was a man in a long, loose, tanned, leather jacket, the kind worn in the days of his father, the jacket was hooded and under the hood was a pair of glowing purely green eyes. There was a sudden roar as Alexander's hearing returned, he could hear the two men arguing, "you are not need here Nyctalope," the first said, "this mage is of no concern to you."

"Wrong," the newly identified Nyctalope said, his voice was deep and sounded like he was talking through a tin can, "you were attempting to kill him Jack, that is concern enough to me." He aimed a pistol at Jack, "now leave, or I'll shoot and I don't miss," Jack growled but sauntered away, without his hat, which he had lost at some point. Nyctalope walked over to Alexander, he picked three objects off the ground, a hat, a gun and a cane, he turned to Alexander, he pulled something from his coat pocket and suddenly there was a sharp prick in his neck and Alexander drifted into a dreamless unconsciousness.


	4. Chapter 4

Alexander came to in a dark room, he was on a strange bed not his own, it was far less comfortable, he was also still in his clothing, his boots next to him, his hat and coat on hooks on the door. He was not a prisoner, both pistol and cane were on or near the bedside table, the only other piece of furniture in the room. The room was silent and smelt of damp, there were no windows in the small room, so he could not tell the time, all the light came from a dull, flickering lamp hanging from the ceiling.

Alexander got to his feet, slipping his feet into his boots, he pulled on his coat, grabbed his cane and put his pistol in his pocket, he checked his coat to see that his pocket watch was still there, it was, as was everything else, his watch said it was one o'clock, probably in the morning seeing as there was no sound outside the room. He carefully made his way over to the door, careful not to tread on any loose boards, he reached out to test the door, it was not locked, he slowly swung the door open, baiting his breath, hoping it would not squeak.

The door was well oiled and swung open with ease, revealing a darkened, windowless hallway, the only light provided by the lamp in the room he was leaving. Alexander carefully crept from nook to cranny, avoiding the doorways set in the walls, each stretching menacingly in the low light.

"I did not think you would be up wizard," a tin can voice said, Alexander turned in surprise to face Nyctalope's glowing green eyes under his leather hood, "you are free to leave whenever you wish, I only brought you to my house to treat your wounds, especially your concussion. You're lucky I was following Jack's trail, not many survive an encounter with ol' Jack."

"Who was he?" Alexander asked as he tried not to look into the glowing eyes.

"Spring-heeled Jack, the terror of London, been around for hundreds of years, he's a killer, sometimes for hire, sometimes for fun, I've been trying to find his employers, but Jack has outwitted me, but I think I'm close to finding them by other means."

Alexander shuffled nervously from foot to foot, "who exactly are you?"

"I'm Nyctalope, the man without a heart, my heart is made of metal, as are my eyes and my voice box, they were gifted to me by a magiscientist when my old ones started to wear out, he was trying to make himself immortal by replacing all the squidgy bit, I don't know his name, but he signed everything with a delta, called himself Quartus, but I know it was not his real name."

Alexander frowned, "I've never heard of a magiscientist called Quartus, if he made an artificial heart it would have gotten out, he would have told someone, patented it, published his research, something."

Nyctalope shrugged, "I don't know, I just stumbled across him one day, told him about my eyes, voice and heart and he put in new ones, told me they would last longer than I would, well, probably."

"So, you're part man part machine?" Alexander asked as he tried to process what he had heard.

Nyctalope shrugged, "yes, that about sums up my situation."

"So, why are you hunting a murderer?"

Nyctalope sighed, it sounded a bit like a stone being shaken in a metal container, "before my second lease of life I was not a good man, I wasted God's gifts, I spent my time in and out of jail for petty theft to pay for substances to let me see my beloved again." He sighed sadly and shook his head at the thought, "then Quartus found me in a pub one night while I was drinking away my sorrows, we got to talking, I told him about my problems, he gave me job as an assistant, he paid well and I was happy. But, then my body parts started to wear out, thought I was gone for, but Quartus delivered, he gave me new parts to replace the broken ones, I continued to help him with his tinkering for years. However, three years ago, when we were nearly complete with his new body. Quartus took the body and left in the night, left me with enough money to support me for three lifetimes and a note that simply told me to be a hero to others, so here I am, being a hero, saving lives, catching crooks, exposing corruption. This is my biggest ever case, I've been tracking Jack and his friends for months, I got several small fry, money launderers, racketeers, corrupt minor officials, but they crop up like mushrooms after rain as quickly as I squash them. Jack is the first big fish I've managed to force out of whatever shadow they're hiding in. Why was he after you anyway, Jack usually only kills weak mortals for pleasure, not an armed wizard, by the way, why didn't use magic on him? Your wand is in your pocket."

"He was after me because I reported him to the Aurors and I didn't use my wand because I had my gun and there were mortals about, you know, not in front of mortals and all that. Why didn't you use magic?"

"I'm not a wizard, I was just brought into this world by Quartus and no-one can obliviate me out of it because of my eyes, so I'm just here, annoying the Aurors by catching their criminals." He smiled, the smile was hard to make out in the murk, but it was unmistakable. "Anyway, I'll make you something to eat, you must be starving after sleeping through Saturday and Sunday."

"Yes please," Alexander said as he had suddenly realised how hungry he was after Nyctalope mentioned food, Nyctalope studied Alexander for another beat before turning and walking off.

"This way please Alexander," he called over his shoulder without looking back, Alexander scrambled after him, barely able to keep up with Nyctalope's long strides.

Nyctalope lead Alexander through long dark corridors where he could barely see in front of his face, the only light being a faint glow from Nyctalope's eyes "stop!" He shouted, Nyctalope stopped and turned to face him, those eerie green eyes appearing to almost float in the darkness. "Look, Nyctalope, you may be able to see in the dark, but I can't, so please can we have some light in here?"

"Of course, I'm not stopping you, if you want a light, cast a spell," Alexander felt his face flush as he pulled his wand from his pocket.

" **Luminos** ," a dim ball of orange light hovered in front of Alexander, he could now see Nyctalope for the first time without his vision distorted by pain or darkness. Nyctalope looked like your average London ruffian, he was tall and bulky, he had a flat face with a square jaw and a nose that spoke of many street fights. He was totally normal until you got to his eyes, at first glance it look like he was wearing some strange spectacles, but on closer inspection the spectacles were actually part of him. The haunting green lenses protruded from his face by about half an inch and a ring of metal ran back from the lens to his face and covered his entire eye socket and could be seen faintly under the skin, around the edge of the sockets were surgical straight scar that went on for an inch, the scars were bone white and raised in little ridges. He was dressed in a pressed white button up shirt, a brown waistcoat, an old hooded leather travelling coat, black trousers and hobnailed boots.

"I see now why you drew your gun rather than your wand, you're a weak wizard aren't you?" Alexander blushed and stared at his feet whilst fidgeting, but still nodded the affirmative. Nyctalope tutted, "no reason to be ashamed, you're still a better wizard than I am," Alexander looked up and smiled a small, weak smile. "So what do you want for breakfast? I have bread and jam, bacon and eggs, pastries, um, I think that's about it actually, I wasn't really expecting a guest."

"Um, I'll have bacon and eggs please," Alexander said nervously.

"Okay, this way," they walked to the end of the corridor and after a few more turns were in a corridor lined with little magical light that shone a merry yellow light into the corridors, Nyctalope then lead Alexander down some stairs. The whole of the building that Alexander could see was decorated in the same sparse way, red wallpaper ceiling to about one metre from the ground, where some plain wood cladding took over down to the plain dark wood floor. The stairs were similarly decorated, the only break coming from the plain chunky wood handrails that ran down both sides of the steps. On the stairs they passed a pair of house elves, the only other inhabitants of the house that Alexander had seen since he had arrived, they were intently scrubbing the floorboards, so Alexander decided not to try to talk to the bag swathed servants.


	5. Chapter 5

Nyctalope lead him into the kitchen, where a slightly overweight house elf wearing a tall white hat was standing on a stool and cheerfully stirring a large boiling pot and humming to himself. The kitchen was a large room, lined with cabinets, workspaces and at the end was a massive fireplace full of spits, hooks and stoves.

"Master Nyctalope," the elf called happily, waving a spoon laden hand at them, sending forth a spray of boiling water, the elf blushed and returned the spoon to the pot, "the laundry is nearly done sir, oh we have a guest, a pleasure to meet you sir, I am Inky."

Nyctalope smiled, "that's Inky, he's my head chef and only chef, he came with the house, as did the others, so what are you cooking Inky?"

"Laundry," Inky said pulling a face, as he gestured towards a pile of linens, "the house keepers decided to change the sheets today, so poor ol' Inky has the job of stewing them. Anyway, is there anything I can do for you master, or did you just want my lovely company?" Alexander was agog with the way that this elf was speaking to his master, if Nyctalope was normal he would have expected him to hit his elf for being cheeky, but instead, Nyctalope just laughed.

"No Inky, Alexander here is hungry and would like some bacon and eggs if you don't mind," Inky pushed his hat back on his head to scratch his forehead.

"Why of course sir, I'll just go to the pantry and have a look," Inky hopped down from his stool and walked out the room.

"He's a great cook that Inky, even if he has got a mouth on him," Nyctalope said ushering Alexander onto a chair.

Inky strode back in holding two eggs and three rashers of bacon, "I return triumphant," he shouted, holding his clenched fist full of bacon over his head.

"I noticed," Nyctalope said, causing Inky to smile devilishly, "just cook them up." Inky strode over to the stove and started cooking. "Right then, we have a problem, how do we catch Jack? We have no clue what his weaknesses are, because we have no clue what Jack is, I doubt even Jack knows what Jack is. All that is known about him is that he can see in the dark, he can jump onto a two floor tall building's rooftop from the ground and he's damn good at not leaving clues. However, I now have one clue, he left his hat behind and it still has the maker's name inside. Macker and Sons, magical hatters and tailors, have been in London since the Normans, maybe longer, Macker is bespoke, expensive and tailor made, that means that they keep extensive records of all their customers and their hats. They number their hats, so a customer merely needs to give them the number and they can make a new hat for them. I just hope they will co-operate, you know, tell me about Jack, I would hate to have to break into Macker's they apparently have some very tough security."

"Sounds like fun for you, but what about me? I report Jack, I get attacked and I bet they're staking out the Institute and my home," Alexander snapped his fingers, "I bet that the Auror, what was his name? Mr Anno I think, I bet he was in on it," Nyctalope's lenses made expressions hard, but Alexander got the feeling he rolled his eyes.

"Really Sherlock? What gave it away?" He asked sarcastically.

"Can we get him in on this?" Alexander asked hopefully.

"No," Nyctalope said, "only one non police detective per case," he smirked. "Besides, Sherlock does not do magic, he says it every single time I see him, which is usually when he is on a case about magic, but still, he does not do magic."

"Wait, you met Sherlock Holmes? The world's greatest detective?"

"Hurtful," Nyctalope whined, "I am a detective as well."

"Yes, but you cannot deny that Sherlock is the best."

"Finished," Inky called as he carried over a plate of fried eggs and bacon, "here you go sir," he said putting it down in front of Alexander, "you be careful now, it's very hot."

"Thank you Inky, you can return to the laundry now," Nyctalope said, Inky bowed and returned to his boiling pot of laundry. "Now, as I was saying, at dawn, just after the shops open I, or we, will head over to Macker's and ask them politely for the delivery instructions for this hat. If that fails, we will chase up that Auror you talked to and if that fails I will be reduced to my plan C, which will involve using you as live bait.'

Alexander choked on his eggs, "what!" Cough, "I never agreed to being bait, I just want to go home and live my normal life."

"Well tough, you've just been dragged kicking and screaming into the world of crime fighting, at least until we deal with Jack and his friends and their friends you will never be safe. You see, from my experience, there's always a vengeful ally, family member, business associate, boss, whatever and they appear at about the same rate we put them away."

Alexander sighed, "so, I'm stuck in this then?"

"No, eventually they'll decide you're not worth the energy, but that might take a while, or you might just get lucky, you never know, they might forget you," Nyctalope chuckled to himself like he had said a joke.

"So, what do we do know?" Alexander asked as he finished the last egg.

"Oh, Macker's first," he reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a pocket watch, the watch was a very old design, it was gold with an enamelled image of a white owl on the lid. Nyctalope pressed a button on the side and a spring loaded mechanism flipped open the lid, making the ticking of the clock surprising loud. "Macker's will be opening soon, we should get going," he twisted a small knob on the side of the watch for a few turns turn, before snapping shut the watch and returning it to his pocket. "Come on," he rose from the table and strode from the room, Alexander chased after him.


	6. Chapter 6

Macker and Sons was in the old section of the borough, the area that was known as Diagon Alley, it was an almost exclusively magical area and there was currently talk of closing it off to muggles. The Ministry was unsure about whether the privacy justified the cost, so they just tried to make the place as unappealing as possible. The streets were filthy, the houses leaned inwards at precarious angles, shops were only painted in muted colours and most paintwork was flaking off. Despite looking like a strong wind would knock down the entire street, the houses on Diagon Alley were actually more sturdy than most muggle houses, especially with the strict rules the Ministry had put in place to try and avoid unwanted attention from muggles and nothing draws muggles like disasters, such as maybe, a collapsed building. Macker and Sons was a shop painted a muted green, it was designed to look like a more recent edition to the decrepit district and advertised itself as shop for people heading to costumed parties. There was a creepy model of a jester head over the door, which needless to say meant muggles mostly stayed away, but magicians were in and out like bees, especially pure and half bloods, but a few satyrs could be seen rushing past in waist coats and trousers. There was something that even looked like a young giant, already taller than most men, but it may have been a member of one of the smaller Cyclops clans. Inside Macker's was a large store with costumes on racks, mixed with the genuine robes, but at the back was the exclusive Members' Area, curtained off from the rest of the store. The Members' Area was in fact the robe fitting area for magicians only. Standing in front of the curtain, leaning heavily on a black and silver cane was an old man in a smart charcoal grey lounge suit and top hat, the man was ancient, his eyes squinting so tightly behind thick spectacles that his eye colour was not visible, his long sparse grey hair slicked back with grease reached his collar.

"Good morning Mr Macker," Nyctalope said as he walked over to the old man.

Mr Macker started and turned towards Nyctalope, he squinted even more behind the spectacles and smiled at Nyctalope, revealing a snaggle toothed smile, "g'mornin' Misser 'Tope, 'ow isn ya"

Alexander cringed at the uncivilised country accent, but Nyctalope smiled at the old man, "I'm good my old friend."

"I ain tha' old, waten can aye d'fer ya?"

"I need your help," he held out the hat to Macker, who took it in a gnarled hand and started examining the hat more intensely than was probably necessary. "This hat belongs to a murderer and your people made it, I know who he is, I need to know where he lives."

"Thi' 'at doos b'long ta Jack, he'sa strangen, aye dunna weir 'e's liven, 'e cooms 'ere por 'is 'at 'n' soo', soree ay 'ave nottin," he handed the hat back to Nyctalope with a shrug, "aye'd 'elp ya if ay cou'. Ayl sen' wor' ef e turn oup."

Nyctalope sighed again like a stone being shaken in a metal tube, "that's okay Macker, thank you for your time, I have other leads, come on Alexander, we should leave old Macker to his work."

"Aye, ain' go' no wor' anymo. Bu' I'll been seen ya'," Nyctalope nodded and led Alexander from the shop.

"Well, he wasn't helpful," Alexander grumbled as he trust his hands into his pockets, "I could barely understand what he was saying."

"I suppose he wasn't, but you can't ever expect to find an answer around every corner, mysteries are not like a city map just a straight a to b, they are mazes, corner after corner, there will always be dead ends, we just need to remember not to end up in the same corner twice, or we're stuffed."

"I wish this were a maze," Alexander muttered, "then I could just follow the wall," Nyctalope laughed as he lead his companion through the busy streets of London.

The alleyway Alexander had been attacked in by Jack was, of course, unchanged in the few days since Alexander was last there, still full of people off their rockers on Lordium or Opium, or some other exotic substance. "Brings back memories, doesn't it?" A familiar voice from his right said, he spun to face Michael, "been a while eh buddy, couple of days, I hope this visit goes better than last time, don't want to be beaten up by a lunatic again, well, let's go," he faded out of existence.

"You've been seeing things haven't you," Nyctalope asked quietly, he did not sound scared or confused how most people are when they see someone they think is insane, instead, he sounded concerned.

"No," Alexander said as looked forward, not glancing at his companion as he tried his best to not notice the moans and gurgles of the willingly impaired. Nyctalope made a sound that was probably a sigh, but in reality sounded like a can rolling down a hill and carried on walking.

"Do you smell smoke?" Nyctalope asked as they reached the end of the alley.

Alexander sniffed the air, "yes, distinctly wood smoke, but mixed with tar and others, like, an old cargo boat is burning."

"Hmm, I wonder what it could, oh no, you don't think?" He ran off, Alexander ran also, but struggled to even keep the other man in sight as the evening fog rolled up the river.

By the time they reached the fire the mist was starting to form its distinctive tendrils low in the gutters and thinner sheets blanketed everything else as they waited for reinforcement from the main body of fog. The fire was coming from a wide squat building by the river's edge, a crowd of people had formed to watch the burning. A row of police (mostly disguised Aurors) held the masses back, the disguised Aurors were there because the burning building was Aurora Shipping's Warehouse.

Nyctalope started cursing quietly but with such disgusting profanities that Alexander felt like hitting him, "we'll never get anything now, the paperwork is just cinders and the Aurors will be busy for months on this one, dammit, a thousand curses on the idiot who did this."

"We could at least try to talk to Arthur about Jack," Alexander suggested.

"Not going to work, he can use this as an excuse not to see us, we'll have to go with the other plan. On Monday you'll return to work and I will watch over you, if Jack attacks, I'll nab him, or whichever minion he sends after you, then we can finally get him."

Alexander swallowed nervously, "I, I don't like this plan, it seems dangerous," he licked his lips as tried to compose himself.

Nyctalope shrugged, "it probably will be, but this is the world I live in, it is ugly, it is smelly, it is deadly and you just fell right into its midsts. Now you have two options, you go through with this plan, maybe die, maybe capture Jack, maybe nothing happens. Or you go into hiding until I can sort this all out, however, I may never be able to sort this out seeing how you are my last lead."

"Go on, do it, it'll be great fun," Michael's voice sounded behind his head.

"I, I, I'll do it," Alexander said as licked his lips again.

"Excellent, so on Monday you will return to work and I will be watching and hopefully we get Jack, come now, it is almost time for dinner and Inky makes a mean roast chicken," he said as he lead a rather scared Alexander down the alleyway they just came from. Both were blissfully unaware of the figure standing on the rooftop, a figure in a ragged suit and with yellow clawlike nails, a figure who smiled at what he heard.


	7. Chapter 7

Alexander's cane clicked frequently on the cobbles as he walked along the street, he was trying hard to look inconspicuous, and it showed. He was walking hurriedly, his shoulders hunched, his eyes flitting this way and that as they searched out the face of a man who was burned into his nightmares, sweat rolled down his face in the weak autumnal sunlight and he was breathing faster than his accelerated pace would account for. He was also trying very hard not to look up onto the rooftops of the low terraced houses he passed as that was where Nyctalope was following him from and he did not want give him away.

The Institute, as always was a large, squat building made of the finest limestone, it had been gifted to magiscientists back in the seventeenth century by a wizard merchant who had made his money in the triangle trade and had wanted to leave a legacy to magiscience rather than slavery. Whilst made of fine limestone it had been designed by a man without imagination, so it was totally and utterly bland, the closest thing it had to architectural merits was the occasional half column carved into the corners of the horseshoe shaped building. Everything else just looked like a cliff with windows carved into its face, there were not even any gargoyles, instead just ugly copper pipes protruding a foot from the wall. All in all it was not a pretty building, but it did not need to be, it just needed to hold magiscientists in peace and quiet, except for the occasional explosion.

Mr Miggins, the secretary was sitting at his desk, he was a middle age ex-Auror who had retired after losing a leg to a troll under London Bridge, he was a grey haired man with sharp grey eyes that always made Alexander nervous, he had a yard brush sized moustache that bristled as he talked. "Mister Worth, a strange fellow called Jack came calling for you," Alexander froze and felt the colour drain from his face, "dirty fellow, looked like he could do with a shower, he said he had a confidential message for you. I sent him on his way, there was no way any sane man would trust someone like him to deliver a message, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost," Alexander ran from the room and did not stop running until he was in his workroom, he slammed the door behind him, locked it and sank down against it breathing heavily.

After several minutes of composing himself, Alexander rose to his feet and walked over to his workbench, he read over his work from Friday and threw himself into his work. He carefully continued carving tiny runes into his gyroscopes, until satisfied, he wrote some notes to anyone who should find his room abandoned and left his room with one of the little inventions.

He walked to the large stone and metal room known only as the Bunker, checking it was empty he shut the door and bolted the lock, "if this works, this will be the greatest moment of my life. I will have invented something that has been hypothesised for centuries, time travel, always humanity's fantasy, to drink tea with Queen Elizabeth, or study under Archimedes, to learn strategy from Caesar, it would be-"

"The weapon to end all weapons, the ability to change the course of history," Michael said as he appeared next to Alexander, "go on, give it a go," Alexander hesitantly licked his lips as he looked at the clock on the wall, one o'clock, he pressed the button on the side, the gyroscope spun one rotation and the world blurred, the clock went backwards, now it was twelve o'clock. "Great success, I think this calls for some lunch," Michael smirked as Alexander's stomach rumbled, "your time spinny thing works."

"I shall call it the time turner," Alexander said smiling as he road the wave of euphoria for finally defeating the project that had taken up most of his adult life.

"Real creative," Michael said rolling his eyes.

After getting lunch from the canteen, Alexander returned to his workroom, to begin sorting out his time turners, he planned to restrict them to only being able to go back a few hours at a time to prevent exactly what Michael was talking about. Time, he had decided, was too dangerous for humans to play with in the long term, however, short term would be fine, he hoped. Of course, he would keep his own one unregulated, he had decided that he was responsible enough to not screw up the events of the past. Alexander hunched over his workbench as he set to work with his magically guided chisel to carve more runes into the gyroscopes.

Time ticked by as he worked, the silence broken only by the tiny tinny clicking of the chisel on the metal of the gyroscope, the hours bled into each other and as he came close to finishing the thirteenth gyroscope, footsteps started approaching him from behind, the footsteps were of a measured pace, he had not heard them enter the room, the door had not opened and the window had been painted shut by an incompetent painter the previous summer. The footsteps were getting closer, they were not slowing, or speeding up, Alexander swallowed as he realised his mouth was very dry, he licked his lips and spoke in a nervous, quiet voice, not looking up from his work, "who, who's there?"

A loud ticking started behind him from the same place as the footsteps, Alexander turned to face the sound, unfinished project in hand, there was nothing there, but the ticking sound was still there, still coming from directly in front of him, Alexander reached out to touch the empty space, but there was nothing for it was just that, an empty space in his lonely workroom. "What are you doing?" The sudden voice behind him made spring from his chair, dropping his chisel and metal contraption in the process. Michael was sitting on his workbench, he pointed at the invisible ticking sound, "oh that thing, that is a hole. It is where something should be, but isn't, something will happen there and it will break reality, dunno what though, kind of exciting though."

"How do you know that? You are just a figment of my imagination," Alexander growled, angry at the figment for startling him.

Michael frowned and folded his arms, "what gave you the idea I was a figment of your imagination? I'm a ghost, a special kind, I am stuck to you, only you can see me, only you can hear me."

Alexander scoffed, "how ridiculous, anyone can see a ghost, even muggles can, heck they can even sense a Dementor, there are no special requirements to see a ghost."

"I am a little bit more complicated than that, I cannot say much more at the moment," Michael said chewing his bottom lip nervously.

"Why not? If you are dead what restrictions are there?" Michael looked nervously up at Alexander.

"More than you could ever know," he faded from existence.

"Damn whatever he is," Alexander mumbled angrily, as he absently slipped the unfinished time turner into the breast pocket of his shirt, " _either he is a ghost, or my sanity is slipping further,_ " before Alexander could think any further the window exploded inwards, leaving the terrifying figure of Jack himself standing in the middle of the floor.

"Surprise, you're dead," he raised a gun and shot Alexander through the heart, darkness consumed his vision before he hit the floor, he died five seconds later.


	8. Chapter 8

Alexander woke up very cold and with a massive pain in his chest, he opened his eyes to see a broad shouldered figure in a cloak. The figure was standing on the prow of a low, shabby ferry of some kind, he had pole in his right hand, one end was in the water. The figure reached out a literally skeletal hand, the hand was made of just bones held together by no discernible tendons, muscles or cartilage, the appearance of the hand was enough to make Alexander shudder, but he still stepped forward against his will before everything blacked out again.

It was too cold and too bright, he must have left the window and curtains open last night, these were the first thought to go through Alexander's head as he sat up in bed. Alexander frowned, this was not his bed, it was not even Nyclatope's spare bed, this one was narrow, scratchy and uncomfortable. The room was spartan, containing only a washbasin and a chest of drawers, which had his clothes on top, he noticed a blood stain on the shirt, Alexander remember what had happened in a sudden flash of memory, he grasped for his chest to check the bullet wound, but he could feel no pain under the bandage that had been wrapped around his chest, despite the fact that at best he should be in immense pain.

A doctor in white surgical wear bustled into the room, followed by a rotund priest carrying a Bible and crucifix, they stopped when they saw Alexander sitting up in bed, the doctor paled and grabbed the door handle to support himself, whilst the priest flat out fainted. "You died," the doctor said, clearly unsettled "we put you on that bed so Father Martin could give you your last rites, bullet straight through the heart, no one ever survives, thrown from a window, fall should have killed you, yet you live. But how did you? How could you? Why did you?" Then he fainted as well.

"Well that was strange," Alexander said as he got out the bed and dressed himself, when he checked the bullet-hole in his shirt, indeed, the bullet would indeed have gone through his heart, "and that is stranger." Lacking a great coat or hat he left the hospital room, he did however have his pocket watch and oddly enough, his gun, careful to not trip over the unconscious men in the doorway.

The corridors he walked through were a hive of activity, orderlies moved patients from room to room, people on beds were wheeled to and fro. It was satisfyingly busy and everyone seemed to know their job and where they were going, so Alexander did not disturb them as he meandered slowly, trying to find the way out. He recognised the road he was on as soon as he left the building, he was in the medical school near to the Institute, he walked quickly towards his workplace, desperate to find Nyctalope for answers.

The Institute was surrounded by police who were scurrying about looking for clues, most unsettling of all was that his room had exploded, the wall blown off, taking with it the walls of surrounding rooms, anything that powerful should have killed him, yet it had not. The police looked like normal police, they would not let him through and Nyctalope would not be with them, probably, so Alexander turned and walked to Nyctalope's strange house.

* * *

He rapped sharply on the door, the door was answered by a house elf in the usual clothing of a burlap sack, "can I help you Mister?" He asked in a tired voice, from the droop of his ears and nose, he was a very old elf, probably at least four hundred years old.

"I'm here to see Nyctalope, tell him it's Alexander," the elf nodded and shut the door, leaving Alexander standing on the doorstep, tapping his foot impatiently, "how rude."

Ten minutes later the elf returned, "you're still here, good, Master will see you now," he turned and walk off, Alexander following close behind, making sure to shut the door as he went.

The rude elf lead Alexander through the dark house to a large library come study, which was the only room with a light on, Nyctalope was sitting in a chair holding a glass of wine, "you're alive," he said with surprise in his voice before he hesitated. "I'm sorry, I should have been there, I was lead on a merry chase through half of London by some lackey dressed as Jack, I was halfway to the Palace before I realised what happened. I came back, you were a charred corpse on the ground with a bullet through the heart. So, how are you alive and unharmed when you were dead? I checked your pulse and everything."

" _I'd like to know as well,_ " Michael said, he was loud than before and sounded like he was inside Alexander's head, Alexander spun looking the hallucination, but could not find him.

"What are you looking for?" Nyctalope asked.

"Michael," Alexander said, seeing no reason to hide his madness anymore, "the hallucination who used to appear only when I was tired, but now appears at random and believes itself to be a ghost."

" _I am a ghost, or I was until Jack shot us, now I'm stuck in your head,_ " Alexander sighed.

"I'm mad, aren't I? Hearing voices, seeing things, having the thing I see turn into a voice in my head," he slumped heavily into a chair.

"Not necessarily," Nyctalope said, "I once knew a man like you, clever, inquisitive, magical, saw things. He thought he was insane until one day he spoke to the vision. It was a spirit trying to say goodbye to his family, but could not without a medium's help, the man lived most of his life without knowing he was a medium. Sometimes people like you are not insane, you could simply be a medium and as you are untrained you only see one spirit, who may have something important to say, talk to him next time you see him. He may help you, if nothing else we could do with another pair of eyes."

"I doubt it," Alexander said sceptically, "I've never heard of a ghost requiring a medium before, they usually turn up, haunt some people, finish their business and leave, there is no way Michael would be just a ghost, no, I'm going mad and I don't like it," suddenly a quiet ticking sound started, he took out his pocket watch, the ticking was happening in time with the watch. "It's getting worse," Alexander shouted as he covered his ears, only to uncover them upon discovering it made the sound louder, "I'm now hearing ticking sounds, like a clock, regular as clockwork."

Nyctalope frowned as best he could around the immovable metal eyes, "hmm, did you have anything on you that the bullet would have passed through to reach your heart?"

"Not that I can think of," Alexander said as he tried to trace his own actions that day.

Michael sighed inside his head, " _the unfinished time turner, you hadn't put a limiter on it yet, it was in your breast pocket_."

"Of course," Alexander said clicking his fingers, "my unfinished time turner."

"Your what?" Nyctalope asked, "don't play games dammit we need answers."

"My time turner, it was what I was working on at the Institute, a personal time travel device, valid only for short term travel, maybe a day at most, I had one that was not finished yet, it would have been able to go anywhen and I put it in my breast pocket before Jack broke the window. If it was shot," he did some rough calculations in his head, "it would indeed have been able to produce an explosion large enough to rip off that wall and throw me into the streets."

"But what about if it was shot into your heart?" Nyctalope asked, Alexander froze and started mumbling to himself.

Michael sighed inside his head, " _according to my calculations, the explosion of time energy would have been enough to, over time, repair your body by suspending you in that exact second you were shot in and then after you were injured it would have returned you to the state you were in the exact moment before you were shot._ "

"According to the voice in my head," Alexander said before frowning, "which is never a good way to start a sentence, the time energy was enough to suspend me in time, making it so when I died I was revived by time something or other, but I am a little sceptical about all that because he is the voice inside my head.

"Hmm, we would need a chronosensitive to test this," Nyctalope muttered, completely unphased by talk of voices in heads, "it's just a shame don't know any, or we might, it's rather hard to tell, usually they don't know because there is no test to find out. The last publicly known one was murdered about thirty years ago, by our dear old friend Jack. He sure gets around doesn't he?"

"So, what's the plan?" Alexander asked, "I want to get my hands on Jack."

"Well, I happen to have the aforementioned lackey tied up downstairs, want to go say hello?" Nyctalope asked with a devilish smile and stood before he had an answer, he walked over to a bookshelf and removed volume one of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene and pressed on a panel that was behind the book. There was a moment of silence as a bookshelf swung open, revealing a passageway that look like it could lead down into the bowels of the Earth. "Come along," Nyctalope said as he walked over to the corridor, he pressed an unseen button and mage lights flared into existence in the corridor.


	9. Chapter 9

The two of them walked down the stairs, down step after step that stretched for miles, they passed side passages, each leading off into darkness, some lined with doors, some without. " _We need to talk,_ " Michael said inside Alexander's head, " _there is still not much I can say, but I will say what I can, I have no idea what the long term side effects of this may be, but there is a distinct possibility the effects might include us slipping out of place in time, which would be awful."_

"How awful?" Alexander whispered, careful to not let Nyctalope to hear him talking to himself, he really could not afford to let his one chance at catching Jack to think him insane.

" _We would be left frozen in a moment, a split second, in which we would have mobility across the world, but the world would carry on and leave us behind, we would be stuck in a strange world where our laws of science will not work, objects will not fall, water will not flow, the only things that would work would be you and magic._ "

Alexander thought about the implications of being literally stuck in time, "not good at all, by the way, do you hear the strange ticking sound?"

" _Like a clock ticking inside your head with no discernible source?_ " Michael thought, sounding rather interested.

"Yeah, so you hear it as well. Do you know where it is coming from?" Alexander whispered as the stairs levelled out and Nyctalope started leading him along a corridor.

" _No, I don't hear it, but I used to, congratulations, you're chronologically sensitive, which is strange, seeing as before we walked passed several anomalies that should have triggered you, but you said nothing about it,_ " Michael' thoughts trailed off, " _I wonder, don't talk to me for a while, I need to think about this._ "

Nyctalope stopped in front of a heavy iron door, he pulled a key from inside his coat and unlocked the door with a deep thud. Despite the size of the door, it swung open with ease, revealing a man chained to the wall. He was a dirty fellow, at least six foot three, but he was thin, with very little bulk to him, he appeared to be unconscious, he had a swollen right cheek, or at least it appeared that way in the low light of Nyctalope's lantern, the man's clothing were a tunic and pair of trousers made of what appeared to be wool in neutral colours. Nyctalope walked over to the man nudged him with his foot, the man groaned and sat up, he blinked blearily in the dim light and when his brown eyes were able to focus, he saw Nyctalope and spat at him, but the phlegm fell short. "You will get yours vigilantes, no one crosses Jack and gets away with it, he will rip your head off," Alexander was surprised at the eloquence of the man's speech, he had expected one of the more rural dialects, or the labourers' rough London accents, but this man sounded like he was from a wealthier family in the home counties.

"I doubt that filth," Nyctalope said in a harsher voice than Alexander had heard him use before, it emphasised the metallic tone to his voice and made him sound inhuman, almost like a monster. "You will answer my questions, or I will give you yours right now and I am less gentle about it than Jack," the man shrank back from Nyctalope, evidently he was a man who liked talk more than action. "Now, why is Jack after Alexander?" The man hesitated, Nyctalope slapped him backhanded, sending the man sprawling, Alexander heard a tutting sound inside his head as Michael watched on.

" _He won't get answers like that, I find imagination is a far worse torture than anything you can do to a man, tell our over zealous friend there to get a jar of jam, a bag of weasels, a flexible stick, a small fire and a small iron bar._ "

"Nyctalope, stop, I've had an idea," Nyctalope froze and turned to Alexander, Alexander passed on Michael' strange list, Nyctalope tilted his head before making his way to the cell door.

"I'll talk!" Shrieked the thug, "Jack wants you dead because he was told to kill you, his employer was worried Alexander was too close to time travel, wanted to prevent anyone from stopping their plans, he was covering it up as being a common murderer angry at being caught. Please not the weasels!" He shouted trying to move into a position to start begging.

"What is his employer's plan?" Nyctalope asked.

"I don't know, all I know is that the employer had his own employer, some secret society or another made of rich people who want to be richer, I don't know, or care, I just wanted to get paid," the prisoner was close to tears now.

"What is their next target?"

The man swallowed and looked around with wide eyes, "I don't know, we were only told what the next job was after we finished the previous one," Nyctalope loomed over the man, who squeaked and shrunk in on himself, when he spoke his voice had gone up several octaves. "But, um, but, um, Jack has set up his headquarters in a house, big one, right next to Saint Paul's, he likes that roof, can see everything there, or so he says. You can't miss the house, it's the big abandoned one, well, it looks abandoned, there's a spell or something on it to make it look like that. We got in and out through a manhole cover in the road, if you wait around you will see some guys dressed in overalls and workman's clothing entering and leaving through a fake sewer hatch in the alley behind the nearest pub."

Nyctalope hummed to himself for a second, "we will check it out, but if your information is a lie, then may the Lord have mercy on your soul, because I sure as hell won't." The chained up man whimpered like a kicked puppy before Nyctalope swept out the room without another word, Alexander followed him out.

"So, we are going to go after Jack then?" Alexander asked when Nyctalope locked the door again.

"Hmm, yes, but I'm not sure about this, there's something he knows that he's not saying, if it is not a trap I will eat my own hat, I'm sure Inky could come up with a recipe to make it edible. By the way, what was your plan with that list of things? I could think of some interrogation techniques that use some of those, but not all of them."

Alexander smiled, "oh, I had no plan, but I'm sure he thought up a far worse torture for himself than I ever could."

Nyctalope chuckled, "you're learning, I need to get some things before we head off to get Jack, but let's get back to the library before we discuss anything else, it's too dark and depressing down here to discuss such things."

" _Michael? Are you there?_ " Alexander thought, hoping it worked.

" _Yes, yes, I'm here, I see you have worked out a form of communication that does not make you look like a crazy person. I have been doing some thinking and making observation seeing as that is all I can do in here and I noticed some things, firstly, it has been at least eight hours since you last ate, yet you are not hungry. I have been monitoring your other bodily functions, you have not lost any water, the oxygenation in your blood has not at all fluctuated as it should between breaths. From this I have drawn the conclusion that time might have slowed or even stopped for your body, except for your mind. So, this could all mean we are now a fixed and unchanging point in time, I would doubt we would be able to die even if we want to. This could also means I'm stuck inside you because that was where I was hiding when you were shot, however, whilst I'm unsure about the first part that last part should be be temporary, or at least I hope so, being stuck in here is not all fun and games, it is really infuriating when I can't see things myself and have to rely on you to show me what I want to see._ "

Alexander swallowed as he processed what he had been told, " _so, I'm immortal?_ "

" _For all intents and purposes, yes, you are, unless the anomaly dissipates, but do not let that go to your head, this does not mean you should go charging into battle just because you can. Each time you die and come back you will create a small temporal anomaly as you disrupt the timeline, which whilst harmless by themselves, if too many exist at once you will attract some attention you really don't want from some very nasty creatures. The anomalies dissipate over time as the universal continuity repairs the ripples and eddies that you would be creating. Also, you did notice one of the anomalies before, in your workroom, you noticed the one that did this to us, I think you may have been weakly chronosensitive, but it got an enhancement of sorts from the accident_. _However, I think it is more likely, seeing as our minds merged, that you gained my chronosensitivity on top of your own. Right now we need to work out exactly what happened, how it happened, why and what it means for us, particularly if any of our other abilities has combined, well, by that I mean have you gained any more of my abilities, seeing as you have the body_."

" _Any ideas on how to get you out of my head?_ " Alexander thought.

" _Not yet, I think over time I should be able to leave, but no ideas on how to speed it up,_ " Nyctalope pressed a button on the wall, opening the door to the library, light spilling in from outside.


	10. Chapter 10

They emerged into the library, causing Alexander to blink furiously from the sudden increase in light levels, "I will get Inky to work on dinner, want anything?" Nyctalope asked.

"No thanks, I'm not hungry," Alexander said as he sat down in one of the chairs to try and process what had happened.

"Suit yourself," he left Alexander alone in the library.

"To think, I woke up on Friday in a perfectly normal way, in my normal life, now here I am on Tuesday, I think, I might be wrong about that and I have a ghost living in my head. I am in the same house as a man partially from metal, I was murdered by a lunatic, then resurrected with strange time magic and may be immortal, but the jury is still out on that one."

" _Yeah,_ " Michael thought at him, " _but isn't it so much more fun this way, I have a theory you may have gained my magic when we merged, but as I have been dead for a while it might take my magic a while to find you, or return from wherever dead magician's magic goes. This will be interesting to see how your body deals with an increased amount of magic, although, with your new weird frozen status, it will probably not do anything._ "

Alexander sighed and sank into plush wing-backed chair, "I just want a normal life where I don't have to worry about Spring-heeled Jack, or his employer's plan."

" _Oh, but that is so boring, what life would it be if you didn't live a little?_ "

"The excitement of academia was all I needed, now if I ever leave this house I will have to look over my shoulder every few second to make sure I'm not kidnapped and killed, it may not actually kill me, but it will definitely hurt."

" _You'll get used to it, soon caution will become second nature to you, although, it will be interesting to see what new and innovative way they can find to try and kill you,_ " Alexander was sure he heard laughter behind the thoughts, but it was hard to tell as they were only the thoughts of words, rather than the words themselves, so some subtlety was lost.

The comments piqued Alexander's curiosity, " _who were you Michael? You keep hinting at your past life, you talk about chronological sensitivity as though you were one, yet that is a rare gift, you talk about caution becoming second nature, yet you were obviously a scientist, what with you calculating complex time equations in your head. Or is it my head? Faster than I could, so, who were you?_ "

"I'm _a ghost, I retain information because it doesn't change in my head, because I don't have an organic brain anymore, in short, my memory is like a picture, perfect and unchanging. I've spent the best part of half a century following people around, convincing mediums to help me learn things that might be useful in my attempts to exact my revenge on my murderer._ "

"You really need another hobby," Alexander said, still not feeling hungry, he headed to bed, hoping he could sleep, he was not tired, but he still wanted to sleep to pass the time and to retain some normalcy.

Nyctalope found Alexander the next morning in the library, he had failed to achieve sleep, so was instead reading a book on the history of clocks.

"You really need a hobby," Nyctalope said, "so, I decided last night whilst I was eating my supper that we should scope out that house our friend downstairs told us about and if it is what he says it is, we attack tonight."

Alexander barely even looked up from his book, "oh, great, sounds like fun," he said in a monotonal disinterest.

"Let me guess, your new condition means you cannot sleep or eat, correct?" Nyctalope said, "and now you're depressed by that." Alexander only gave a barely perceptible nod in response, "well, don't be, look you, this may be weird or scary, but think on the bright side, you probably will never be ill and there is a distinct possibility you will live forever."

"That is what has me depressed," Alexander muttered, he closes the book and looks up and Nyctalope, his eyes filled with tears, "I don't want to live forever, it'll be boring after a while. I know I'll go mad, or madder, I'm still not sure about the voice in my head, can you imagine how it could end up for me, just century after century of lonely boredom long after mankind inevitably wipes itself out from some big war or something, it'll just be me and sand."

"Nah," Nyctalope said flippantly, "you're getting yourself down, that won't ever happen and if it does, well, you made thing that made this happen, you can make the thing to make this happen again, but to stop you being immortal, instead of making you immortal."

"I wish it were that simple," Alexander muttered.

"Anyway, you may not need food, but I do, so I will see you after breakfast, we will go do some scoping and maybe even some skulking."

* * *

The house had seen better days, it was not the magical kind of disrepair, where houses looked like they were built by a toddler, it was the kind of disrepair associated with long abandonment. The house would have been quite nice when it was new, it had three floors, from the number of windows, there were probably about seven room on the front and back of the house, but it could have been more or less depending on sizes of the rooms. The house was limestone that would have once been polished and made to shine, but instead it was now pitted and blackened, there was also a weird mist that seemed to cling to the building, despite the presence of strong autumnal sun and a light breeze heading down the Thames and out to sea. In front of the blackened facade was a small garden that would have once housed a manicured lawn dotted with small statues and a pair of rose bushes, now it was a wilderness of overgrown weeds and grass, the rose bushes were barely visible under a massive pile of thistles and shepherd's purse and the statues had fallen down into the grass and were now being slowly buried under the grass.

"It certainly looks uninhabited," Nyctalope said as he surveyed the building, he was hiding under his leather hood, trying to ignore the strange way people were looking at him, "I would guess a glamour of some kind to hide small movements in the windows, come on, let's find that hatch."

The hatch was indeed behind the nearest pub, a rather seedy looking place called The Fat Friar, it was painted a jolly but tastefully muted shade yellow. Over the door hung a sign of a rather overweight drunk looking monk leaning on a barrel whilst holding up a glass containing a liquid that was probably wine, he appeared to be laughing as he looked down at the passers-by, who were mostly ignoring the establishment at this early hour of the day. The back of the pub was less friendly, the alley was dark, dirty and smelt of rotting food and stale beer, there was also a very old dirty orange cat with only one eye and missing half an ear. " _Ah, the true London,_ " Michael announced, " _dirty, ugly, smelly and dangerous_ ," Alexander ignored the voice. The hatch was in the middle of the road and looked like any other London sewer hatch, it was round and made of some ferrous alloy designed not to rust in London's humid weather.

"Help me with this," Nyctalope said as he reached down to grab one of the handles.

Alexander walked over and stared at the slimy handle in disgust, " _you're a wizard dammit, use magic_ ," Michael practically shouted inside his head.

" **Wingardium leviosa** ," Alexander cast as he pulled his wand out his pocket, the metal hatch shook in place before rising up with the movement of Alexander's wand, he carefully set it down next to the hole.

" _It seems I was right, you would have not to move something that heavy before the accident,_ " Michael thought, his thoughts sounding like they might have been a little smug.

"Your magic is stronger than I thought it was," Nyctalope said as he dropped into the hole, Alexander soon followed suit, the tunnel was clearly not a sewer, it was dry and poorly maintained, most of the bricks had cracked, the ceiling was propped up by lumps of stone and wood and there was evidence there had been side tunnels, but they had either collapsed from poor maintenance or deliberate destruction.

" _Probably an escape route for whichever Lord or merchant prince built the house,_ " Michael helpfully informed Alexander.

The stone floor was littered with evidence of recent use, ranging from muddy footprints and disturbed dust to dropped matches, coins and cigarettes, "we are on the right track," Nyctalope whispered as they carefully made their way through the twisting, meandering tunnel. The tunnel ended abruptly at a heavy wooden door that unlike its surroundings seemed rather new, the door even still smelt like a tree, Nyctalope leaned forward and looked through the keyhole, "there are people in there," he whispered, "one looks like Jack, there are too many of them, I'll call around some of my friends with grudges against Jack, then I'll tip off the Aurors, hopefully we can burst in, bust some head and get Jack. Then we can use him to find his employer and put all this to bed and find a way to get that voice out of your head."

After they exited the tunnel and replaced the hatch, Nyctalope returned with Alexander to his house before immediately setting out to find his friends.


	11. Chapter 11

"You all know why I brought you here," Nyctalope said to the library which was now full of people, "we are finally getting Jack put into a noose, but first I'd like everyone to meet Alexander," he indicated Alexander who waved nervously, Alexander was the man who made all this possible. Alexander I'd like you to meet my friends, the young man in the red hat and trench coat is Abraham, he's a Dutch magiscientist studying at Imperial College who specialises in dangerous creatures." Abraham was about twenty five, he was about medium height for a man of a stocky build, a broad chest and shoulders. He had a friendly, open face framed by short black hair, containing friendly, if piercing blue eyes, a broad nose that had been broken at least once, his mouth was almost totally hidden under a thick black moustache above a strong chin.

"This is Galad Holmwood esquire, of Godalming," the man who was indicated was obviously an aristocrat by breeding, but enjoyed an unfashionable amount of time in the sun, he was a bit older than Abraham, maybe twenty eight to thirty, he had a fine aquiline nose set in a delicate face, he was rather handsome. He had military regulation length blond hair, but his lack of a moustache marked him as a civilian, his wide set green eyes were dark and nervous. He was dressed in a fine grey three piece suit and was carrying at least one gun in his pockets.

"Good to meet you old chap, sad it had to be under these trying times," he spoke with a perfect pronunciation and accent that only the nobility train from birth could achieve. His voice was free of any wavering, and sounded to be the voice of a man who was totally at peace about what was happening, which Alexander found rather strange considering his obvious nervousness.

"This is my good friend Mark Harker, he is an ex-Auror," Mr Harker was a short, muscular man with a massive handlebar moustache and a totally bald head, he appeared to be in his late fifties. His piercing brown eyes were set below heavy brows, and his large nose had been broken and set several times, making it quite bent, and very red. He was dressed in a well cut brown corduroy three piece suit, with a button up shirt and red bowtie.

"Left because they were all corrupt, every last one of them, took bribes from all the fancy lordlings, including my brother, could never nail charges on any of them," he said in a gruff but cultured voice, hinting at maybe spending a few years in France.

"Penultimately, this is Mr Charles Brunner," he said indicating the man whom Alexander had not even noticed before, he was sitting in a wheelchair in the corner, he may have been tall if he could stand. He had curly brown hair, and deep brown eyes that sparkled with knowledge and maybe a bit of mischief, he was a slim man dressed in a fine, if unseasonable, tweed suit.

"I would get up, but, alas," he indicated his legs, he had a friendly voice that had the trace of a Greek accent to it, "Polio got to me before you did," he smiled sadly.

"And last, but not least, the explorer Allan Quartermain," he indicated a man with grey hair, the famed explorer was not how Alexander had expected him to be. He was a short man, wiry and somewhere in his early fifties, he was dressed in a white linen suit, and had a great coat hanging from the back of his chair, despite it being considered barbaric to openly carry weapons he had a rifle by his side, he had a short grey beard and hair as well as watery, tired blue eyes that looked like they had seen more than they wanted to see.

"Just skip your theatrics Nicky," Allan grumbled, "I want to hear how you plan on getting Jack."

Nyctalope glared at Allan, "very well, this morning, Alexander and yours truly discovered Jack's base of operations, it is in abandoned building near Saint Paul's, reached by a tunnel behind the Fat Friar, my plan is as follows, we go over there, Charles gets the Aurors, when they get near we attack the thugs from behind, they are trapped between two groups and we capture Jack."

"How do you planning on telling the people in the tunnel when the Aurors arrive?" Allan asked.

"Oh, um, I had not thought of that," Nyctalope snapped his fingers, "portkey, you guys are wizards, give Charles a portkey to the back alley behind the Fat Friar, he tells us when the Aurors are on their way, we attack together, nab Jack, be home in time for supper."

"I don't like hunting prey in close quarters," Allan muttered, "and a cornered lion is always more dangerous that one in the plains, but sometimes the risk must be taken."

"Whilst I have never fought a cornered lion, I agree with Allan's sentiment," Mark said as he nervously fiddled with the collar of his shirt.

"I say, this does sound jolly exciting," Galad said as he rubbed his hands together with glee and smiled widely, "you count on my support, and my word is my bond."

"As long as I'm a good distance away from the fighting, I'm in too," Charles said as he shifted in his wheelchair.

"Hmm, this may go, how do you say? Disastrously? But I will also help," Abraham said in a thick Dutch accent.

Everyone looked at Alexander expectantly, "my participation goes without question, I thought you knew that. I just want this to end."


	12. Chapter 12

Alexander shivered as he rubbed his hands together to keep them from seizing up, that night the weather had snapped, it was freezing, and apparently his new found lack of bodily functions did not stop him from feeling the cold. So he stood and shivered in a back alley behind a seedy pub, a position he had not been in since university. The fog had rolled in again and covered everything under an undulating, thick white blanket that muted all sound and blocked all sight beyond the end of his arm. It was the thickest fog of the year so far, and it made communication a little difficult, he had already tripped over Allan and almost knocked the hunting rifle from his hands. Everyone had arrived armed with at least one gun, Allan had the aforementioned hunting rifle, as well as a shotgun, hunting knife and a pair of outdated flintlock pistols, Nyctalope had a rifle, and a shotgun, whilst Abraham had a bayoneted rifle, and a broadsword of all things, Galad had two rifles, two pistols, a hunting knife and a sabre, Mark was armed with just a pistol, as he said he trusted his magic to protect him, Alexander also just had just a pistol and a cane, mainly because he knew he could not aim anything else, although his ability to shoot a pistol was still rather questionable. Alexander had spent the afternoon helping the others prepare, and had learnt a little about them, Mark, Galad and Abraham were all pure blooded wizards, whilst Allan was a squib from a well to do pure blood family, who had managed to send him off to Africa before he became known about outside the family. Alexander had always had a soft spot for squibs, his little brother, who now lived in Portsmouth working on ships, had been a squib. He hated how squibs were treated as less than muggles just because they were not magical, it had not been fair, but that was society's way of dealing with those they did not like, sheer hatred and mistreatment.

Alexander was pulled out of his thought by the sound of Charles arriving via portkey, "they are on their way. I told them that they would have help, apparently they've had tip off before about this place, but had been too scared to act, it was only when I told them about you guys that they were willing to do anything, bloody cowards."

"Good job Charles," Mark said, his voice quivering slightly, "right fellas, who feels like having a shoot out."

" _Why are wizards using guns when magic is more effective?_ " Michael asked, startling Alexander after his hours of silence.

" _You can still use a gun whilst exhausted, but you can't use magic, by the way, where have you been? Your advice would have been useful a few hours ago,_ " Alexander thought as he climbed into the tunnel.

" _I was trying to get out your head, I almost succeeded, but I ended up stuck about halfway out, don't worry, it seems the temporal anomaly's grip on me is loosening._ "

" _Does that mean the anomaly's grip on me is weakening?_ " Alexander asked nervously, " _because I don't want to be in a gun fight and regain my mortality_."

" _Hmm, to be honest, I'm not sure, merging two souls into one body is different to forming a fixed temporal point, fusing us was a feat of pure power from the magical explosion. However, suspending you in time was the nature of the magic itself, so even if I do separate from you, you should be fine._ "

" _Are you sure?_ "

" _Hmm, at least fifty percent, nothing is guaranteed when you work with time_."

They stopped in front of the same heavy wooden door, "I say, when do we spring our little trap and bust some heads?" Galad asked with his eyes bright with excitement, as his voice trembled slightly with anticipation.

"Soon," Allan whispered as he cautiously looked through the keyhole, "there are six thugs on the other side, as soon as we start fighting the others will here us, so we should be quick about it, there are two more rooms off to the sides, I would recommend Mark and Alexander go to the right, whilst Abraham and Nyctalope take the left and Galad and I will hold the stairs. Any objections?" No-one spoke, "good." Shouts were heard from upstairs, followed by a whistle and gun fire, "that's our cue," Mark pressed his wand to the lock, and with a soft click, the door swing open, the six thugs inside, jumped to their feet, "nobody move, hands where we can see them," the thugs raised their hands at seeing six guns pointed at them.

" **Incarcerous** ," Mark cast, a stout rope shot from the end of his wand, and tied the men tightly to a support post in the cellar. Allan walked over to the tied up men and started disarming them, pulling out guns and knives, he then knocked out each with his rifle butt.

"Split up," Nyctalope said, Alexander followed Mark through the narrow corridor that lead off into darkness.

" **Luminos** ," Mark cast, causing a ball of white light to appear and float next to him, illuminating the dark corridor, Alexander swallowed nervously as they stepped further into the unknown.

"I'll take the lead," Alexander said as they walked through the corridor.

"You sure?" Mark asked, Alexander licked his lips and nodded, "okay, your funeral."

Alexander lead them through the corridor until they reached a large room, quickly extinguishing the light, they snuck up to the end to look in, the room had two floors, the bottom floor that they were on and the top floor above, it appeared to be prison of sorts. People walking around wearing black leather robes and metallic beaked masks, or at least they looked like thugs until you noticed that whenever they took a step their knee knocked the back of their robes rather than the front, and that under the mask their eyes were solid red. All around the room there were people in cells, filthy people who looked rather well off, judging by the remains of their clothing, and hanging from the ceiling were more of the strange robed creatures.

"Death Givers," Mark cursed, "I thought we wiped those guys out a decade ago, bloody cultists, they let weak demon to possess their bodies. The demon makes them stronger and allows them to fly, but over time it corrupts their bodies, fusing their clothing to their skin, turns their eyes red, reshapes their anatomy, eventually, the demon comes through fully and needs to be destroyed. We have got to wipe them out today, this many demons could kill thousands before they are put down."

"So, we should have bought more guns then?" Alexander said, "we can go get the others."

"No, the demon grants them protection from mortal weapons, only magic can kill a demon, and magic swords, and certain woods, like rowan, yew and oak, so your cane would actually hurt them, if it is indeed oak as it looks to be."

"So, how do we do this?"

"I don't know, an elementalist would be really useful right now, they are really weak to fire, I'm not sure why."

" _It's a shame I'm not there, or I could help_ ," Michael thought as he reappeared inside Alexander's head, " _still no luck by the way._ "

"I guess we just go in, lead them back into this tunnel and defeat them one at a time, I hate fanatics," Mark muttered.

"I'll go," Alexander said as he stepped out of the tunnel, he turned to the nearest cultist, " **incendio** ," the man violently burst into fire and started screeching in an inhuman wail. The wail caused all the other creatures (for Alexander now refused to think of them as men) to turn towards him, and screech in a cacophony of sound and fury. " **Incendio** ," Alexander cast, catching a group of a dozen or so were hanging from the ceiling, they screeched louder than the others as they plummeted to the ground, the first had also gone out as he had been reduced to ashes. The other had taken off and were coming at him, either running with an unnatural gait that whilst fast looked awkward on the ground, or they flew at him with their robes turning into bat wings, revealing underneath more black clothing. Alexander set them on fire as quickly as they came at him, but he was running out of magic, something he had not expected. He turned to run back into the corridor, but something heavy landed on his back, causing his wand to fly from his grasp, he was flipped over to face the masked face of something that had once been human. The monster grinned at him, revealing rows of tiny dagger shaped teeth, staring into its pure red eyes, Alexander suddenly felt unable to move, it took a hold of his legs and dragged him away, snapping at the other creatures to keep away.

Alexander was still unable to move when the cultist hung him up on a hook by the back of coat, he was still unable to eat as the creature started chanting in a guttural language that no human could speak, he still could not move as the creature tore open his guts, and started feeding on his intestines, he still could not move as he finally, mercifully passed out from blood loss. Alexander still could not move as he died for the second time in as many days.


	13. Chapter 13

Alexander gasped as his body started working again, if his stomach had still worked he would have been sick at the sight of the blood that coated the floor, especially when he remembered it was probably his own blood. He tried not to look at the bits of his own flesh that coated the floor, he carefully unhooked himself, using the wall behind him to push off from the hook. His clothes were in tatters and soaked in blood, his killer was lying nearby, fast asleep, his cane was still on the floor where he must have dropped it. Alexander picked up the cane and walked over to the creature, and hit on the head, once, twice, thrice, the creature stopped breathing, but just to be sure, he slammed the end of the cane into its ribs until both ribs and cane shattered, Alexander panted as he calmed down and watched the creature's brown ichor slide down the walls, and ooze from its wounds. He stumbled out the little alcove the creature had dragged him, he found Mark fighting the creatures, he was slowly retreating to the tunnel, the floor was covered in ash around him, for now he was holding his own, but he would not make it, he was panting furiously as sweat rolled down his face. Seeing his wand on the floor, Alexander ran forward on feet that had still not realised they were alive and grabbed the stick from where it lay, and started casting spells at the swarm. Upon realising there was a new opponent, half the creatures turned and charged at Alexander, who started casting spells as quickly as he could, soon he was overrun and bleeding from a dozen deep cuts all over his body, he could feel the cuts closing, but the creatures were inflicting them faster than he could heal, but the number of cultists was decreasing steadily until it was just Alexander. Realising that he was now alone, Alexander collapsed as his cuts healed, he heard footsteps approaching him, a face looked down at him, he could not tell who it was as his vision was going blurry, but he knew from the blond hair it was not Mark.

Alexander woke up groggily, he had not died this time, merely passed out, he looked around, he was in a cage, outside the cage was a man with scruffy blond hair, he had piercing green eyes and was dressed in a black suit. "So you are awake, good, I don't have much time, my name does not matter, what I will tell you does, you and your friends are meddling in affairs you cannot hope to comprehend, events that have been centuries in the making. So I suggest that after tonight you go on a long holiday and let this play out, of course, you won't, but let it never be said that I did not warn you." He vanished in a flash of golden light, and the cage door swung open, Alexander stepped out, he was still in the prison, on the top floor now, he looked down to the other floor, Mark was lying in a pool of blood and ashes by the entrance, there was another blood splatter where he had passed out, with a drag trail heading towards the stair. Alexander ran down the stairs to Mark, who opened his eyes upon hearing Alexander arrive, his breath was rattling in his throat, and he tried and failed to sit up.

"You did well kid," Mark said quietly, "I'm not dying, that man saw to that, but I won't be any more help today, go, free those people, go join the others, I'll be fine," he started coughing, "I need to sleep," he slurred as he fell asleep. Alexander dragged Mark to a relatively hidden spot before turning back to the people in their cages, there were a few hundred of them, mostly women and children, "listen, when I release you, run along this corridor, you will reach a room with some thugs tied to a post, there is a wooden door set in the wall, go through that door, there is a tunnel, it leads to an alleyway behind a pub near to Saint Paul's cathedral, wait there for my friends and I to return and we will see about getting you back to your families." Alexander set to work releasing them, the people running with barely a word of thanks, he managed to stop a pair of men to carry Mark back with them. When all the people were freed he lead the two men through the corridor, and back into the room they had first entered through, the men set Mark down in the corner, and walk off down the corridor towards the Fat Friar. Nyctalope and Abraham were engaged in a violent gunfight on the stairs, they were not wounded, so were probably winning, they had a couple of shallow wounds, mainly just grazes that were already scabbing over, but Abraham had lost his hat, Alexander drew his wand to join them.

"Go find Mr Holmwood and Mr Quartermain," Abraham shouted over the gunfire, "we can hold them until then."

Alexander ran headfirst into the other doorway, this corridor was shorter than the other one, and was soon full of the sound of gunshots, he emerged on the other side to see Allan wrestling a short man, he had lost his guns and his knife at some point, meanwhile, Galad was shooting at another short man who was climbing on the walls. The men were dwarves, probably woken from their beds by the entrance of Alexander's companions, their armour was still on racks by the four stone beds that were the only furniture in the large room aside from a large table with four chairs, the other two Dwarves were unconscious or dead on the floor. He watched as Allan kicked the dwarf off of him, sending it sailing into the air, Alexander quickly drew his gun, and shot, the shot hit the dwarf in one muscular arm, causing it to shout in pain. The dwarf belly flopped onto the table, which collapsed under his weight, the dwarf tried to stand, but his eyes rolled up into his head, and he was still.

"Good shot," Allan said as he stood up and dusted himself down, the other dwarf, seeing he was now out numbered jumped off the wall and raised his hands in surrender.

"I surrender," he said in a nasal voice, he was about average for a dwarf, meaning he came up to Alexander's armpit, he had a large mouth full of large teeth, his eyes were huge and blue, an adaptation to living underground, he was dressed in a simple brown smock and hose, and was totally bald except for a bushy brown beard.

" **Incarcerous** ," Galad cast, tying the dwarf up.

"I take it by you being yourself that Mark had fallen," Allan said sadly.

"He's alive, but injured, we ran into some Death Givers," Alexander reported, Allan frowned, whilst Galad paled slightly.

"I knew Jack was a scoundrel, but I never thought he would go that far," Allan said, "the rogue dwarves I can understand, they built the extensions to the tunnel, but not demon cultists."

"I say, that is jolly rotten of him, it is absolutely not cricket to invite cultists into London of all places," Galad said angrily, "I say we shall rejoin our fellow law givers post-haste and push on up the stairs and find that rotter."


	14. Chapter 14

The three men ran back along the corridor, and found their friends still engaged in a gun battle, they were covered in cuts from where bullets had grazed their flesh, however, Nyctalope had taken a bullet to the the thigh and was bleeding heavily. "Just like our trip to Egypt," Nyctalope shouted when he saw the three of them arrive, "Mark unconscious in a corner, me with a wounded shoulder and a bunch of angry people shooting at us."

"I had not thought of it like that," Allan said, "although, there are less Cyclopes trying to eat us."

"I must interject here my friends and suggest that we find a way up these stairs," Galad said, "might I suggest Allan that I create for you a shield, and you use it for cover to shoot our adversaries, such as we did in our last trip to Russia."

"Sounds as good an idea as I suppose," Allan grumbled.

" **Protego** ," Galad cast, creating a glimmering shield at the bottom of the stairs, which caused the bullets to ricochet back up the stairs, "do hurry old bean, I can't hold this forever." Allan took his position behind the shield, and nodded to Galad, a small hole opened in the shield which Allan put his shotgun through. He fired one barrel, there was a deafening explosion followed by shouts of pain and gurgles of injury, this was soon followed by stamping feet running away from the top of the stairs.

"Forward," Allan said, Galad, who was sweating profusely from the effort, nodded and the shield advanced in step with Allan. When he reached the top of the stairs there was another, slightly quieter explosion, and Allan called down, "clear." Galad sighed with relief as he lowered his arms and mopped his brow with a handkerchief.

"Nyctalope," Abraham said, putting a hand on his arm to stop him advancing, "you are injured, stay here and guard Mark, and the exit, we could have to retreat." Nyctalope looked ready to object, "no, old friend, you stay here, Jack's men will try to escape, you stop them."

"Very well, if that is what you think best," Nyctalope said pointedly.

* * *

They left Nyctalope with Mark in the cellar whilst they made their way from room to room, most of it was unfurnished, except for a few mattresses and tables covered in coins and cards, and aside from the sound of gunfire in the front room, the house seemed uninhabited. Finally they made their way to the second floor, which was one unfurnished room running the length of the house, there had once been other rooms, but the walls had been torn down, leaving jagged wood in their place. In this room they were confronted by three men wielding knives and Jack himself, who had replaced his hat, "so, you are the motley crew who are here to take me to justice, a student, a thrill seeking toff, a washed up squib hunter and a cowardly magiscientist. Where's Nyctalope? I had looked forward to finally killing him, and Alex, I thought you were dead." He paused for a moment before slowly smiling, revealing his sharp teeth, "and is that Michael I sense, is my old adversary here to vicariously seek his revenge by living inside your head?" He threw back his head and laughed, "pathetic, the lot of you," Michael' scowling form faded into existence in front of Jack, "this is what you are now? Not even capable of becoming a full ghost you have become a parasite my old friend."

"You can see him?" Alexander asked.

"Of course, I'm the target of the vengeance that drives him, you are the instrument he wishes to use," Jack threw a sword to Alexander, "come on, let's get this over with."

Alexander caught the sword and started fumbling with it, "tip up, shoulders back, feet further apart," Michael started instructing, the three men jumped at Alexander's companions, who had all drawn their bladed weapons. Jack swung at Alexander, who raised his sword to barely block it, the impact sent a quiver down his arm, Jack swung again, and hit Alexander in the leg, the blade bit, forcing Alexander down to one knee.

"You need a better champion," Jack commented to the ghost who had been silent, Alexander swung his own sword back at Jack, who jumped backwards to avoid the sword, leaving his sword in Alexander's leg. Alexander pulled the sword from his leg and threw it behind him.

"Now I have a weapon, surrender Jack, end this madness tonight," Alexander implored.

"The madness ends tonight alright, but not with me," Jack said as he lunged at Alexander as quick as a flash, knocking into him, forcing the sword from Alexander's grasp. The impact with the floor drove the breath from Alexander's lungs, Jack scratched him down the face with nails as sharp as knives, Alexander shouted in pain and punched Jack in the face, knocking him off of him, the impact with Jack's face causing something to crack in his fist. "Tsk tsk, you should never punch with a fist," Jack said as he touched a hand to his nose to check for bleeding, Alexander got shakily to his feet, "you always hit with the elbow," Jack's elbow drove into the side of Alexander's face. Alexander fell backwards, blood streaming from a cut on his cheek, his vision was blurred by the impact, the cut from Jack's nails and sword had already healed, the pain in his fist had been reduced to a dull throb. "Hmm, so you heal quickly, guess I just have to kill you faster," he ran at Alexander, who punched at him, Jack flipped over his head, elbowing him in the forehead on the way over before kicking him in knees as he landed, he followed this by stabbing his nails in his back and cutting a deep gash from the left shoulder to the left hip.

Alexander screamed in pain, Michael started shouting something to him, something he could not here as he started hearing his heartbeat in his ears, his vision darkened as he realised how much blood he was losing, he sank to his knees before a massive impact to the side of the head knocked him to the ground, it took him a moment to realise he had been kicked. Jack was looking down at him and laughing, in the background his friends were still fighting Jack's knife wielding henchmen. Jack kicked Alexander in the stomach, something burst, he coughed up blood. Michael was punching Jack, his ghostly fists passing through him. Alexander did not want to die, even if he was resurrected, his friends might die. He reached inside his pocket and found his wand, he barely had the breath to speak. Jack was laughing over him as he raised his foot over Alexander's throat, " **expulso**." Jack flew.

Jack was raised off the ground and hit into the ceiling, going through the wooden rafters and planks, and onto the next floor. Alexander grabbed a piece of wood sticking from the wall, he gasped as it sliced open his fingers, he used the wood to lever himself to his feet, almost blacking out from the pain. His breath laboured, his head pounding, his stomach throbbing and his knees weak, he shuffled over to the hole he had just made as he felt his body being repaired. He looked up, Jack looked down. "Here's Jackie!" He shouted as he jumped down onto Alexander, Alexander felt his left arm snap and his shoulder pop. "Aw, what's wrong?" Jack asked mockingly as he clutched his left side, "you didn't think I'd go away that easily, did you?" He was bleeding from a cut on his left temple, "look kiddo," he said suddenly serious, "I may be a crook, but I ain't no coward, and I really ain't no glass jaw, I'm Spring-Heeled Jack for badness sake, I am the thing that goes bump in the night, I keep the ghoulies up at light, quaking in their beds." He smiled devilishly, showing off his yellow fangs, "soon, I'll be the big guy, I'll be calling all the shots here in England, you see, the boss said I could have whatever I want, and I haven't decided yet."

"You can have anything-" Alexander gasped before being cut off by a kick to the stomach.

"Don't try that stuff with me nitwick, I know what I want, out of everything in the world, I want England, so corrupt whilst trying to pretend to be so squeaky clean, Saxton said I could have it if I do my job." He stopped and facepalmed, "I said too much, I'm always told I do that, you weren't supposed to hear that, now I have to kill you, well, I was going to anyway, but still, goodbye, you were almost a worthy adversary, well, not really, more of a worthy toy," he slashed his nails across Alexander's throat. Everything went black.


	15. Chapter 15

" _ **I am here**_ ," said a voice that was so deep and immeasurably immense that it help like it was being shouted at him by a thousand bass opera singers had laced their voice with magic and were shouting directly into his ears, and even that analogy seemed inadequate. A figure appeared in front of Alexander, he was taller than the Bell Tower of the Palaces of Westminster, he was a man, or rather, the pristine white skeleton of a man, he was draped in a black robe, his eyes glowed blood red, and each was larger than a man in the fetal position, he carried a scythe large enough to carve a mountain. " _ **I am Death**_."

"Well," Alexander said in a small voice, made smaller by the "pleased to meet you."

Despite it being literally impossible for Death to emote facially, seeing as he lacked skin, and muscles to pull the skin, Alexander got the impression he was smiling, " _ **it is rare that someone welcomes Death when they did not kill themselves or were living in torture, it is refreshing**_."

"Well, I am going to be resurrected soon by the time anomaly in my chest," Alexander said smiling, "so, I can be pleased to meet you."

Death laughed, a sound Alexander thought sounded like what he imagined the entirety of London sliding down a hill would sound like, " _ **most of the power of the anomaly was taken from you when your friend left your body, you see, he was wrong, the power was not in you, it was in both of you**_."

Alexander would have collapsed to his knees, if he there had been ground to collapse onto, or knees to collapse, "so, I am really dead then."

" _ **No, this is Limbo, you see, you cannot pass into the afterlife after your fiasco with the anomaly, allow me to take this to my office to explain**_."

* * *

Before Alexander could ask what Death meant by an office, they were in a room in London, they were high up in a tower, the room was bare stone, and Alexander was in a spectral body. Next to him was a handsome bald man with mahogany skin and black eyes, he was dressed in funeral attire, complete with a black tie, black top hat and tailed suit, all in all, he looked like he was a very handsome undertaker. He was sitting at a dark wood desk, the wood looked more suited to for a coffin than a desk, especially as the chairs on either side had red velvet cushions and there was a bronze pole attached to either end. "This is better, welcome to the Tower of London, one of the jail cells to be precise," the man, who was presumably Death said, "I apologise for the whole Grim Reaper thing, but that was how you envisioned me to appear, but in the living world I can appear however I want and sound however I want. Take a seat." Alexander sat, surprised his ghostly body did not pass through, "now, then, where to start. You are dead dead, no anomaly resurrecting you this time, you see, last time you died, I got you mixed up with Michael, who you were sharing a body with at the time, easy mistake to make, so I took you to his afterlife."

"The boatman, I thought that was a dream, but that was you!" Alexander said in sudden realisation, "also, what do you mean by his afterlife?"

"Yes, that was me, his afterlife because when you go to the afterlife you go to however you interpret the afterlife to be. If you're a Christian, I take you to the gates of heaven where the judge judges you, in this case Saint Peter, and he sends you to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory, Hellenic go to Asphodel, Punishment, Elysium or the Isle of Blessed, etc. Anyway, that doesn't matter, you can't go to your afterlife because officially, you are already there, I took you it, it was the wrong one, but you would have been moved eventually, however, that anomaly pulled you out of that afterlife and back into your body, meanwhile, our records say that you are still in the afterlife so I can't put you in again."

"Why does it work like that?" Alexander asked

Death, the personification of an ethereal concept as old as life itself shrugged, "don't ask me, I only work here."

"Can I ask someone in charge, like God maybe?"

Death shrugged again, "dunno, never seen the guy, he might live somewhere in heaven, I can't pass the gates to find out."

"Can I pass the gates?" Alexander asked.

"No, you have to be entering the afterlife to go into heaven, and you can't enter the afterlife as you are already there, so, it's a real catch 22 situation you're in," seeing Alexander's confused expression he sighed, "after your time."

Alexander sighed as he slumped through the desk, "so I'm stuck, I'm trying to cry, but apparently ghosts can't cry."

"Only banshees, and boy do they cry. Now then, I have a solution, you see, I'm not the only entity of my kind, lots of us exist, from festivals like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, to concepts like Time, Dreams, Balance, Nightmares and Justice. We cannot act directly due to us lacking physical forms, so we have Avatars that do our and recently one of Time's Avatars was destroyed. Now normally, our Avatars are immortal, unless they disobey orders, however, certain weapons are powerful enough to kill even our Avatars. So, upon reviewing your life, you seem like a good kid, etc etc, and in order to not have to deal with your paperwork, Time is going to have a look at you for his new Avatar."

Death stood and left the room, he was replaced by a very, very old man, he was so old his wrinkles had wrinkles, his beard and hair were long and pure white, dragging along the ground. Despite his appearance his eyes were a sharp, intelligent blue that could see through any lie and his back was ramrod straight as he walked in his long green robes that hid his feet from view, the robes were one shade of pure, emerald green and were made of a material that was finer than silk. Around his neck was an hourglass where the sand seemed to have stopped, with one grain suspended in the air halfway down. "It's the Eternity Clock," Time said in a dusty voice that sounded as old as he looked, "it counts down to the apocalypse that will end this age and start the next. Now then, you are the man who Death has chosen as my next Avatar, let's see here. You are a scholar, not a fighter, that's good, I can solve a lack of brawn, not a lack of brain," he licked his lips as he slowly observed Alexander, who shivered as he realised his mind was being read by one of the most powerful beings in the universe. "You are kind, yet you have a certain level of emotional detachment, but you are not sociopathic, and you have a strong sense of justice. Interesting, I will now retroactively grant you immortality to see what you did with it. You did not misuse the power, or even think about misusing the power that was granted to you by my time anomaly when I sent it to test you," he trailed off.

"Wait, you denied me my afterlife?" Alexander said suddenly furious "I can accept being denied by accident, or by clerical error, but not on the whim of a sentient being."

Time raised his hands to quieten Alexander, "I would have corrected it had you proven unworthy and it would not have impacted your afterlife in the slightest, whilst it was possibly not the most ethical way of doing this, it was the most effective."

"I see," Alexander said now calmer, but still a bit angry, "so, what is this job?"

"Very well. This job will allow you free reign with your near eternal life except when I send you a job then you must comply, immediately, you will stop whatever you are doing to comply. Your job will be to protect my effect on your world, you will prevent anyone from damaging natural progression by travelling through the time-stream in the wrong direction. You will prevent anyone leaving the time-stream, you will prevent anyone from damaging the continuum and finally, you will close paradoxes as and when they arise."

"So, basically, I'm the killjoy who stops people from time travelling," Alexander said raising an eyebrow, causing Time to sigh.

"If that is how you wish to view it, you are also prevent an apocalypse caused by all of history and the entire future collapsing into a single moment, which would happen if there are too many paradoxes, or worse yet, rips from long distance time travel."

"Got it, no time travel or bad things happen."

"Of course there are some exceptions, with my permission my other Avatars can travel through time, you will know them when you see them. I have another Avatar, well, he's not really an Avatar, he is more of an unwitting instrument of my will, he arrives on Earth occasionally, you will recognise him, you are to avoid him and not interfere in his affairs. Another exception are the Time Turners that you made, the regulated ones have been recovered by the Ministry and will be used by witch and wizards for generations to come. You see, they travel such short distances that they cause no damage as they are already written into the time-stream and cause no change to the continuation of events."

"Let me guess, there are disadvantages to this, because so far it sounds like positives, eternity and adventure."

"You will be sworn to a life of celibacy free from vice, gambling, alcohol, tobacco, mind altering substances, as this duty is one which cannot allow for distractions or diversion."

"Well, that makes sense I suppose, I expect it's rather hard to find time anomalies if you're rolling in a gutter or chasing imaginary butterflies."

"Quite, in exchange you will be restored to your old body, you will not age, you will not need food, drink, sleep, air, you will not suffer from extremes of temperature, poisons or illness. However, you will still be able to be injured, although your injuries will heal much faster than an average human, your memory will be perfect, no matter how many centuries you live. I will increase your magic to greater than the levels you received when you were merged with my anomaly. Do you accept this great responsibility?"

"So, it's either, wander around the world as a ghost for all eternity, or wander around the world having adventures for all eternity?" Alexander said raising an eyebrow, "very well, I accept, I will be your Avatar."

"Excellent, all that remains is for you to choose a name and sign the contract, my previous Avatars all choose their names to do with time, I've had Avatars who's names have translate roughly to The Sun, The Moon, The Phase, The Time Keeper, The Clockmaker, The Horologer, The Historian, and one eccentric styles himself as Professor Paradox. So Alexander, what will yours be?"

"I will be The Clock," Alexander said after several minutes of thought.

Time clapped his hands, and a piece of paper appeared on the desk on it was written, 'I agree to become the Avatar of Time to serve him as his agent on the Mortal Plane until the turning of the Eternity Clock. I will defend Time, I will serve Time, I will be a part of Time.' A phoenix quill pen and pot of faintly glowing black ink appeared on the table, Alexander picked up the quill and signed the paper.

" _ **The Contract is signed, the terms agreed, and so it shall be!**_ " Time said in a giant voice accompanied with the sound of trumpets, and the rushing of a massive gust of wind, Time raised his hands above his head, and Alexander was thrown out the tiny window as the massive gust of wind hit.


	16. Chapter 16

Alexander groggily sat up, he looked around him, his wand was next to him, Michael was staring down at him. Jack was engaged in a swordfight with Galad, and was losing, badly, he was bleeding from dozens of small cuts on his arms, face and legs, he also had a deep gash to his left shoulder made his left arm hang limply by his side. Galad on the other hand only had superficial scratches on his arms and hands, most of which had stopped bleeding. Alexander picked up his wand, " **stupify** ," the spell hit Jack square in the back, causing him to tumble to the ground, however, he did not pass out, but as he looks up Galad puts the tip of his sword to Jack's throat.

"Yield," Jack sagged and collapsed back to the floor.

"I yield," Galad knocked Jack on the head with the hilt of his sword, knocking the crook out, upon seeing this the other thugs drop their knives and surrender.

"It's over," Allan said as he steadied himself on the wall, he was bleeding heavily from a cut to his side, "I need a drink."

The next ten minutes were a blur of Aurors coming to take away Jack and his goons, followed by questioning, the Auror Renfield was arrested for perverting the course of justice. Jack swore vengeance on their families in rather colourful language as soon as he woke up.

Alexander snuck away as soon as he could, he walked down into the cellar to find Nyctalope slumped next to a row of thugs in various stages of being alive, from unconscious to, not waking up, Alexander cried out as he saw his friend, he was bleeding from one wound to his arm and one to his chest, the blood was deep red arterial blood, as Alexander got near Nyctalope stirred, "who," he gasped for breath, "goes," he sagged as he reached weakly for the handgun at his side.

"HEALER! I NEED A HEALER HERE!" Alexander shouted at the top of his voice, there was the running of feet on wooden floors.

"Don't gasp bother, gasp, I'm dying," he coughed up blood, "see," he seemed to have a last tiny surge of energy as he reached out and grabbed Alexander's arm, "do me a favour, cremate me and scatter me over my city..." he trailed off, his green eyes stopped shining, his hand went limp and fell off Alexander's arm, and his breath stopped, the healer ran into the room, he tried for a pulse in the neck, then the wrist, then the armpit.

"I'm sorry," he said, "he's gone."

"No," Alexander said quietly, "he can't go!" He shouted, "I still need him for this."

"I can't do anything for a dead man," the healer said as he moved on to a different body, this one Mark, Mark was alive, still unconscious,he had not been injured anymore.

" _I still need Nyctalope's help_ ," Alexander thought to himself, " _I need help in this new world I find myself_. _I finally make a friend, even under weird circumstances, and he dies. I should have been here sooner,_ " Alexander squeezed his eyes shut to prevent himself from crying, " _I lose my only friend because I didn't check on him sooner._ "

" _Don't be too hard on yourself, it's not your fault,_ " Michael' thoughts appeared in his head, surprising Alexander.

" _You're still here?I thought you would pass on when Jack was arrested, also, how are you talking to me, our link doesn't exist anymore?_ "

" _Oh, the link wasn't from the time anomaly, Time himself made it when he chose you as a possible Avatar. I was his previous Avatar, I called myself The Sun, rather pretentious I think now, but I had little else in my day, I served for many centuries, since before London was little more than a little tribal village. Anyway_ "

" _So, you lived through a lot then, like, all of recorded history,_ " Alexander asked.

" _Yeah, I've been through a lot, the black death, Mongol conquests, everything._ "

" _So, I'm not going mad?_ " Alexander thought, relieved at the thought.

" _Well, sort of, some of the times you were jumping at what you thought was me, it was your imagination, hallucinations that you came up with yourself._ "

" _So, I am going mad?_ " Alexander thought with despair, " _I'm going to be mad for eternity._ "

" _No,_ " Michael said smiling at him. " _You're frozen remember, you are stuck on the precipice of madness, but you will never fall in_."

" _That's a weird thought, so, I'm just going to see hallucinations occasionally?"_

" _Yeah, pretty much,_ " Michael shrugged dismissively.

" _Mustn_ _'t get distracted._ " Alexander thought as a memory resurfaced, or rather felt like it was pulled to the surface, " _who is Saxton? Jack mentioned him, and the name seems familiar._ "

" _Well, at least I know I can do that,_ " Michael seemed to be thinking to himself before his thoughts turned back to Alexander. " _Saxton is probably Jason Saxton the First Minister of the Treasury, he's the one who is holding a vote in Parliament tomorrow evening to replace the Queen with a President, which would be him, he would then be able to use that to grab power. He's also a powerful wizard, strange fellow, he just sort of appeared a few years back, no records, I was snooping into him when I died, I lost the last few days of my life, can't remember what happened._ "

Alexander gasped as he remembered something, "the prisoners, they must have been related somehow," he said out-loud, startling the healer, he ran down the tunnel to the Fat Friar, he climbed out the hole to see a group of the ex-prisoners huddled together in the cold alley, "you can come in now, it's safe, the police have secured the building and would like witness testimony, there are also some doctors ready to treat any injuries you have." The ex-prisoners practically stampeded back along the tunnel to the house.

"All went well I assume," Charles said as he wheeled himself out the shadows.

"Not quite," Alexander said, biting his lip, "Nyctalope died protecting the tunnel whilst we were fighting Jack."

Charles paled slightly, "I see, Nyctalope was a good man, a bit strange, but a good man, I'll miss him. Don't mourn for him though, he hated that, called mourning a waste of time and energy, just maybe raise a drink to him next time you're in a pub, or say a little prayer." He wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye, he turned towards the end of the alley. "I'll be on my way then, I have a carriage waiting for me, I think I'll probably be seeing you again."

"See you around," Alexander said, Charles smiled at him and wheeled away.

Alexander made his way back along the tunnel and found Mark awake and sitting up staring at the body that had once been Nyctalope. "I told him he'd get himself killed one of these days, suppose I was right," he pushed himself up, "I talked to the prisoners, they're the members of families and loved ones of various members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Aurors have gone to arrest Saxton, I doubt they'll get him, a wizard like Saxton rarely gets caught, he'll just run and hide for a few years, probably go to France, they'll never let us get our hands on him."

"We foiled his scheme at least, that's one thing," Alexander said as he helped Mark lift Nyctalope.

"That's the main thing you mean, I'll send some owls to my friends in Europe and America, see if they can find him, but I highly doubt it, he's going to be around again."

"And we will be here to stop him," Alexander said firmly.

That night they burnt Nyctalope's body as per his dying wish, and scattered his ashes over London, the city at the heart of the world that he had given his life to protect. The next morning Alexander, or rather, The Clock was summoned away to India to deal with a time traveller, it would be many years before he saw London again.


End file.
